History question

I saw an actor on a sitcom use a SLR with an integral prism. This series was characterised as taking place in WWII. It made me wonder when the first SLR that used a prism was produced?

 

Thanks

The concept was patented in 1861, and large format SLRs were in use in WWI according to Wikipedia. The first 35mm production SLR was in 1936, the Exakta Kine, which used a waist level finder, although it is believed a prism design may have existed at that time. The Italian Rectaflex from 1947 used a pentaprism. Zeiss had a design for one before then but it wasn't actually produced until after the war.

Zeiss had a design for one before then but it wasn't actually produced until after the war.

 

Contax S, dated 1949 and I think it was East German. A beautiful machine.

Expanding on SCL's comment: Gustavson's 500 Cameras (Gustavson, Todd. 500 Cameras - 170 Years of Photographic Innovation. New York: Fall River Press, 2011, pp 236 & 241) lists the German Ihagee Kine "Exakta" as the first 35mm SLR in 1935, with the Soviet GOMZ "Sport" as 2nd by about a month. See the Wikipedia article <HERE>, Searching on this name also turns up a number of other articles and opinions regarding which was the "first". It seems unlikely that these cameras would have been in wide circulation outside their countries of origin. Your sitcom's producers probably asked the prop shop for "a camera from the '40's", or some such, in the opinion that few, if any viewers would know the difference. I'd be very curious to see the episode and check it out for myself.

 

Gustavson (p. 252) lists the Contax S of 1949 as the first 35mm SLR with a rectifying pentaprism (as noted by Mike).

Edited April 16, 2018 by DavidTriplett

There were "SLRs" way back as said, but that was just the 45-degree mirror, not an integral pentaprism.

 

As said the Contax S looks likely to be the first production "integral pentaprism" as opposed to various mirror contraptions, and items of very limited production and distribution..

 

The concept predated WWII but the bombing and production for war purposes "delayed" any kind of realization:

Of course, this is VEB Zeiss Ikon, not the West German 'branch'.