msbarnes
Well-known
Was it the rise of inexpensive Japanese cameras that wiped them out?
It seems that the truest German camera (outside LF...never looked into it) is Leica but when I started looking into folders for both the 35mm and 120 I came across Agfa, Voigtlander (original Voigtlander, not CV), Certo, Welta, etc.
I do not know the history, but it seems that their were many more German camera makers prior to WWII.
It seems that the truest German camera (outside LF...never looked into it) is Leica but when I started looking into folders for both the 35mm and 120 I came across Agfa, Voigtlander (original Voigtlander, not CV), Certo, Welta, etc.
I do not know the history, but it seems that their were many more German camera makers prior to WWII.
Bobbo
Well-known
Simple answer: There was a war.
Long answer: After the war, many patents owned by German companies were taken by the allies as war reparations. In an interesting turn, the US decided to play God again and gave significant funding and technology to Japanese companies (even though they were the ones who originally attacked the US). That's why a Nikon I had a Leica shutter but a basically Carl Zeiss lens mount and body shape.
The biggest companies in Germany managed to bounce back slightly but almost all collapsed before by the 1970s, while the smaller ones were wiped off the face of the Earth (usually by Bomber Command or the 8th Air Force). Many firms had their plants (some their entire operations) in cities like Dresden or Leipzig, which pretty much ceased to exist as something other than a burning cinder (again, thank the Mighty 8th). Add to that the country being split in half by bickering Allies and the combined loss of, oh, 10 percent of every man, woman and child in the country, and you start to see how bouncing back became difficult.
Long answer: After the war, many patents owned by German companies were taken by the allies as war reparations. In an interesting turn, the US decided to play God again and gave significant funding and technology to Japanese companies (even though they were the ones who originally attacked the US). That's why a Nikon I had a Leica shutter but a basically Carl Zeiss lens mount and body shape.
The biggest companies in Germany managed to bounce back slightly but almost all collapsed before by the 1970s, while the smaller ones were wiped off the face of the Earth (usually by Bomber Command or the 8th Air Force). Many firms had their plants (some their entire operations) in cities like Dresden or Leipzig, which pretty much ceased to exist as something other than a burning cinder (again, thank the Mighty 8th). Add to that the country being split in half by bickering Allies and the combined loss of, oh, 10 percent of every man, woman and child in the country, and you start to see how bouncing back became difficult.
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Out to Lunch
Ventor
Which begs the question as to why so many niche Swiss watch makers were able to stay in business after WWII.
Bobbo
Well-known
Because Switzerland was neutral.
Out to Lunch
Ventor
Sure but your 'war scenario' does not tell the whole story.
claacct
Well-known
And all that injustice for no reason at all... Its an unfair world, isn't it...
jarski
Veteran
think Japan and Germany were both hit by war.
I read somewhere that German camera designs lost their inventiveness after the war, and were modifications of pre-war designs, e.g. Leica Barnack line and Contax II & III vs IIa & IIIa. whereas Japanese first copied German designs but continued with original ideas from -50's and onwards. why this happened, would it have happened without the war, many questions...
I read somewhere that German camera designs lost their inventiveness after the war, and were modifications of pre-war designs, e.g. Leica Barnack line and Contax II & III vs IIa & IIIa. whereas Japanese first copied German designs but continued with original ideas from -50's and onwards. why this happened, would it have happened without the war, many questions...
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sevo
Fokutorendaburando
Well, that might explain the hiatus of 1945, but it cannot explain why the booming German camera industry crashed in the mid to late sixties, long after it had re-established itself as the dominating force globally by the late forties. Even the Dresden camera industry wasn't destroyed by Allied bombers (nor even by Soviet war reparations or the early years of socialism), but by being merged into state-owned Pentacon which got increasingly mismanaged.
hipsterdufus
Photographer?
Also, let's not forget that the allies also helped Germany rebuild. They virtually had no auto industry prior to WW2.
claacct
Well-known
My comment was quite obviously sarcastic so I did not bother with a smiley or some other sign to make it clear that it was sarcasm, counting on the common sense of others.
hipsterdufus
Photographer?
Geez, dude. I was just adding to your point. I understood that it was sarcastic. Take a deep breath.
Steve M.
Veteran
What happened to the German cameras? The war, absolutely. While the US helped Japan rebuild (how nice, after dropping nuclear bombs on them), the Germans were plundered by anyone and everyone, especially the Soviets.
Then there's this idea. How many reasonably priced, quality, German cameras can you name w/ auto focus, auto exposure, and light weight?
Then there's this idea. How many reasonably priced, quality, German cameras can you name w/ auto focus, auto exposure, and light weight?
batterytypehah!
Lord of the Dings
WWII is only indirectly involved. Zeiss, Leica, Rollei, Voigtländer, Agfa, Kodak (Nagel in Stuttgart) were all hugely successful for a while after the war. What did them in is the same misconception that also killed both the German and the British motorcycle industries: hubris. Nobody believed that Japanese companies were capable of anything more than copying German (or British) designs.
Yes, there was technology transfer to Japan after WWII, but what really spelled the beginning of the end was high-quality, original, affordable designs that came a decade or more afterwards. The most influential being the SLR. A German idea, originally, but complex, expensive, clunky, awkward cameras, until Pentax and Nikon took the idea and ran with it.
Yes, there was technology transfer to Japan after WWII, but what really spelled the beginning of the end was high-quality, original, affordable designs that came a decade or more afterwards. The most influential being the SLR. A German idea, originally, but complex, expensive, clunky, awkward cameras, until Pentax and Nikon took the idea and ran with it.
Ezzie
E. D. Russell Roberts
One could ask oneself what happened to the US, UK, French, Italian camera industries as well. They all went belly up in the face of the Japanese onslought.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
After WWII, many German patents were terminated, allowing other countries to use German inventions without having to pay license fees etc for them.
The Japanese, who were rebuiding their indusry as well, turned to camera's (and cars as well). For a while, German camera's and Japanese 'copies' were equal in the world market.
Leica as a result set out to battle the copycats and developed the M3, for which they were given a patent again.
The Japanese, seeing that the M3 was a real good and patented camera and trying to counter the M3's success, decided to abandon the rangefinder design and instead further develop the pre-war Contax designed SLR, with which they would not have the M3 up against them.
Without having the time to read the discussion properly, what happened to German cameras, was the Nikon F...
More later
Regards
Brett
More later
Regards
Brett
tombla
Member
What about Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Auto Union, DKW, Horch, NSU, Porsche/VW, Opel and the dozens of smaller manufacturers? After all the motor car and autobahn (motorway, freeway) were German inventions.
As for as cameras the (surviving) Japanese relied on combination of functionality, price and quality which was achieved by economies of scale. They have continued to hold onto their dominance by moving the majority of manufacturing to low wage economies.
Popular Photography did a good article on this about 20 years ago. Some of the best German lenses and to a lesser degree, cameras, were done after the war. Comparing Post-War German cameras with there Japanese counterparts- German cameras were over-engineered. More expensive to produce, more expensive to maintain. The engineering is beatiful- but.
The Voigtlander cameras are perfect examples of great lenses, too bad about the bodies. I saw an Ebay seller list a Prominent without lens, good price. Someone bought the body with the Nokton lens in a prior auction, told the seller to keep the body to save on shipping cost. Compare a Contarex, Retina Reflex, or Leicaflex with a Nikon F- easy to see why the Nikon was so popular.
Japan and Germany shared a lot of "intellectual Property" before and during the war. They were allies. Nikon computed the 5cm f2 Nikkor before the war.
So as far as the revisionist history being tauted here as if it were fact- read a few books on the subject. We've had these discussions before.
The Voigtlander cameras are perfect examples of great lenses, too bad about the bodies. I saw an Ebay seller list a Prominent without lens, good price. Someone bought the body with the Nokton lens in a prior auction, told the seller to keep the body to save on shipping cost. Compare a Contarex, Retina Reflex, or Leicaflex with a Nikon F- easy to see why the Nikon was so popular.
Japan and Germany shared a lot of "intellectual Property" before and during the war. They were allies. Nikon computed the 5cm f2 Nikkor before the war.
So as far as the revisionist history being tauted here as if it were fact- read a few books on the subject. We've had these discussions before.
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Yes, indeed. Beautiful engineering is an apt term for German cameras of the 1950s and 1960s, and they were over engineered, to boot. Comparing my Contaflice or a Bessamatic to, say, an SRT or Pentax, is almost like comparing a Sixties BMW with a 240Z (which is a classic design itself). The SRT is also a modern classic. No doubt about that. But, having seen inside one, the engineering, although undeniably reliable, is not beautiful. (That's not really a criticism, because the SRT works; just an observation about design, and aesthetics). And comparing an SRT with a ContaREX would be more akin to a comparison with a (Fifties) 300SL, or a BMW 507.
The Japanese alternatives, especially SLRs, offered more features and acceptable engineering at a better price point. They even had focal plane shutters! A lot of the German offerings had an altogether different design philosophy.
Perhaps it is worth making the point, that a lot of the discussion is more relevant to 35mm equipment. In medium and large format, Germany kept the upper hand for longer. Even today, Linhof, Schneider, Zeiss, are all benchmarks for quality.
Time to sign off now before my wife gets too impatient. We're heading into the city and, after I drop her off, I'll take a wander around Hobart with a Contaflex (S, today), my Pro Tessars and a few magazine backs. Not everyone's idea of the perfect kit, but it turns me on...
Regards,
Brett
Bobbo
Well-known
The West German economy may have been doing well, but the camera manufacturers were already on their way out. The Contax IIa was discontinued in 1961, for example. They just couldn't compete.
Why? All those lovely patents going bye-bye due to the war set the groundwork. Without the Leica shutter, there would be no Canon or Nikon rangefinders in the late 40s or early 50s. The best lenses were really tweaks to existing designs (the 105/2.5 I love soo much is really a rip-off of a Zeiss lens). There would have been nothing to build on (speaking of building, an electronic version of the basic shutter design wasn't discontinued by until 2000 or so with the end of Nikon F3 production) if those patents were still valid.
The Japanese business community is also well-known (almost to the point of stereotyping) for innovation. Just remember: as late as the 1870s, Japan was still basically a late iron age society on par with the Roman Empire with horses as the major mode of transportation and swords being used to settle disputes. Within 30 years, they defeated a major western power in an all-out slugfest between top-of-the-line battleships (Russo-Japanese War) and helped the West put down anti-western rebellion (Boxer Rebellion). This is a prime example of the nation's ability to innovate over a very short time.
By the beginning of the 1950s, they were able to build competitive cameras and lenses, and by 1959, several companies had figured out how to take the German and Russian SLR concept and turn it into a reliable, efficient and convenient photographic machine.
The Germans had centuries to build its optical industry to the juggernaut which it was during the Third Reich. The Japanese did it in less than half a decade because of a good work ethic and a very, very cooperative market
As far as the American camera industry, I fail to see how an Argus C3 can compete with a Nikon F (nobody was making the comparison, and that's my point... there was no real top-level miniature camera manufacturer, as the best Kodak cameras were German). The only "pro" cameras made in the US were 4x5, and as 35mm came more popular for working photographers, the companies simply did not make the transition. Also, unionized optical manufacturing workers are expensive, as opposed to workers in Asia being paid considerably less. Lower costs means more money for R&D.
Another interesting bit leading to the rise of the Japanese camera industry is the strong boost in sales given by selling Japanese cameras in US Post Exchange shops to soldiers and sailors in the far east after WWII and during the Korean War. You can see evidence of this by the <EP> diamonds on many surviving cameras (especially Canons). They brought home these cheap cameras that were very good and that drove demand, as people were tired of either cheap bakelite cameras made in Rochester or Ann Arbor with mediocre lenses or expensive German cameras.
So; free designs, strong work ethic, a cheap labor force and a willing audience made the Japanese camera industry overpower those elsewhere in the world.
But without the war, I would bet none of it would have happened. You would still have German company names, but in the same way Contax lived in the 80s and Zeiss Ikon lives today -- an Asian camera factory with some Germans doing QC.