Ihagee Kine Exacta 1936 Round Window – Accidentally Discovering a Camera Brand I’d not heard of

I shot film back in the 1980’s with my Pentax ME Super. I sold it when I was broke and never really picked up a camera again until 2001 when my son was born. Since then I’ve owned a few Olympus digital cameras and have currently settled on the Olympus EM1 MkII as my ‘digital of choice’.

During lockdown I began to realise that film was making a come back and so I dipped a toe back in the world of film cameras. I bought another ME Super and then I just jumped right in. I bought a TLR, I bought a 5×7 and then a 4×5. I still shoot with all three. Then I started buying Lots at auction, keeping the cameras/lenses I liked and then selling on the remainder if they were useable or I could fix them.

Then one day in November 2023 I came across a Lot at auction that has this fascinating looking camera of a brand I wasn’t familiar with: Ihagee.

I usually do a bit of research so I know what to bid but didn’t in this case and so when the auction Lot came up on Live Bidding, I just decided to set a limit of £50 as it was a local auction so I could avoid paying shipping costs if I won.

I did win! £35 plus commission.

I became the owner of my first Ihagee. Now I researched it and realised what I had bought and it turned out to be quite a historically significant version: The Ihagee Kine Exacta 1936 Round Window.

I collected it, gave it the once over but did not do anything else. Didn’t wind it on, didn’t press the shutter button and if there was a self-timer I wasn’t about to start playing with it. I went online and found out that I could get it serviced by a well-respected individual in Germany: Andrea Schōnfelder at Foto Service Olbrich in Gōrlitz.

I contacted Andrea who said to send it over, and that it’ll take about three months or so. I packaged it up and sent it away. Then it was back to the research.

Let me tell you what I discovered that you won’t find in articles and YouTube videos:

Mythology would have us believe that the ‘Sirens were mythical creatures of Greek and Roman mythology who were depicted as being half-woman and half-bird. They were fabled to have lived on an island and to have lured sailors to their deaths in dangerous waters with their irresistible song’.

Whilst that may be the case, I can assure you that they now live on the internet and are half camera and half jewel and they are called Ihagee. They still sing to you but rather than wreck you on the rocks they take away all self-control and find their way into your mind (and your home). I now own an Exa 500 and an Exacta Varex IIA and the non-Ihagee Exacta RTL1000 which I bought for the Exacta mount lens and of course the Kine.

She arrived back with me in mid-February, camera and lens fully serviced and ready to be taken out. I popped in a roll of Kentmere 400 as a test roll, metered at ISO800 and went on a stroll.

There may well have been some good shots in there but I forgot that I had shot at 800 and so underdeveloped. Also, after scanning there were some consistent scratches on the emulsion side of the film! Yikes!!!!

It’s fair to say I was disappointed, mostly with myself.

I had also been shooting another old 35mm camera and discovered that when I scanned those images I got the same scratches. Now, the film was from the same Kentmere batch but I also used the same scanner. Hmm!
Only option was to clean the scanner and get a fresh roll of film.

So in went another roll of Kentmere 400 (different batch), shot at 400 and what fun it was. I was in Manchester city centre for part of it and the number of people who commented on the camera was amazing. Almost as many as when I shoot with my Mamiya C3 TLR!

It was a very sunny day (a rarity around here), that followed a heavy rain shower (normal weather). It made taming the light very difficult for an amateur like me, as you will see.

A few days passed before I could get to developing the roll. I put fresh chemicals in the development process; Ilford DDX 1:4, Ilfostop and Rapid Fixer. The negatives hung to dry in the shower cubicle as usual and I said a small prayer to Ansel Adams.

Here are a few of the results:

My final thoughts

It takes a certain kind of masochist to try shooting portrait with a WLF on a 35mm.

The mechanics of winding-on the Kine are just so engaging.

Simple things like changing the shutter speed make you pay attention to the moment.

My goodness she is beautiful.

However as Sting once sang: ‘If you love your Kine, set it free’ and that folks is what I have done. She now resides in sunny California.

I have however introduced myself to her younger siblings: the Varex IIA and the Exa 500. I’ll tell you about them too sometime.

Share this post: