allard_wunderink

Ik have the same camera, but with a Zeiss Novar Anastigmat 3.5/75 mm in a AGC Prontor SVS shutter. A rather more modest version than yours. As far as I know one doesn't find thus camera all too often, so we can suppose that yours is indeed not common at all.

AFAIK the Leica Digilux 2 is always chrome, and the Panasonic LC1 is always black.

Nevertheless, I have an oldie Sekonic L-398 Studio de Luxe that still functions impeccably!

Beautiful photographs. My favourite is the graveyard in the fog.

Looks more German than French to me. At least the car is... (I think an Opel Rekord would be something of a rarity in France in the fifties). Also the suburban looking building on the selfie doesn't look very French. But of course I can be wrong.

Interesting, but not wireless I would have thought. And wireless was MTC Photography's question.

Well, one used to make use of self timers.

What John says is true, but there may be another factor that plays its role: design. In the sixties 'form follows function' became less the way to go: the design itself became more important. In the thirties, when they needed two windows for a rangefinder to be implemented, they simply made two windows. Later, slicker designs became more popular. This is very well illustrated when you look at the Voigtländer above (compared to a screw-Leica), and also when you think about cars. In the beginning headlights and mudguard were separated. Later on they integrated them.

Beautiful photograph of Utecht. You found Rembrandt's light!

Rick, of course the Robot Luftwaffen-Eigentum (note the capital letter E) is an altered Robot II body. And of course a camera that is commissioned by the Air Force wouldn't have been in the consumer's catalogue. The only thing I was pointing out is the relationship between the serial prefix F an the camera type. Allard

Serial beginning with F = Robot Luftwaffen-Eigentum

That is a most admirable job Rick. Congratulations. Will make you look the part during your re-enactments!

Strange looking posts. Where do all those HTML-tags come from?

It is in fact a FED camera from Charkiv (Charkov), Ukraine, former USSR. It is altered to look like a Leica, so it is a fake indeed. Nevertheless the worth in Europe will be approximately € 100 if in good condition.

<p>Maybe you should look out for the Osawa brand. Possibly Osawa was a subsidiary of Mamiya. They made several lenses for the Mamiya Z-series. I know they made at least two zoom lenses starting at 35 mm (35-70 and 35-105 mm).</p>