Wirgin

Edixa Reflex-B
Edixa 16MB, black Edixa 16mm camera with selenium exposure meter

Wirgin was a German company which is still known for its brands Wirgin and Edixa, and for its camera types like the Edina, the Edinex or the Gewirette. It was based in the Hessian capital Wiesbaden and made a line of quite inexpensive 35mm SLRs from the 1950s to the 1970s, including the Edixa Reflex and Edixa-Mat Reflex. Wirgin was West Germany's main producer of SLRs with focal plane shutter. It also produced some of the lenses for its cameras, among them several M42 screw mount lenses.

Wirgin was founded by the brothers Heinrich, Max and Josef Wirgin in 1920. They introduced their first distinctive camera in 1927, the Edinex, which they produced also as Adrette for Adox. In 1934 the company surprised the market with a very small viewfinder camera for type 127 film, the Gewirette. From the mid-1930s it also made Edinex 35mm viewfinder cameras. These came equipped with Wirgin Gewironar lens and Compur shutter or Steinheil Culminar lens (alike Tessar) with Prontor shutter.

In 1938 Heinrich and Josef Wirgin were still in charge of their company in Wiesbaden. However, the Nazi persecution of the Jews compelled them to escape from Germany, with the help of one of their clerks. Max arrived in the US May 14, 1936, Max helped his brothers follow him to America. The Wirgin factory in Wiesbaden became incorporated into the Adox company.

After the war Heinrich Wirgin came back from America, now as Henry Wirgin, and refounded the Wirgin company in Wiesbaden. An administrative officer of the American occupied zone of Germany sent Heinz Waaske as promising aspirant to Wirgin. At that time Waaske had sold his prototype of a miniature camera to the Americans. In 1951 the talented mechanician Waaske became camera constructor. He constructed the company's first SLR, a model with focal plane shutter, the first camera like that in Western Germany. He also constructed a more elegant SLR prototype, and later a complicated electronically controlled SLR with Compur shutter, and a stereo rangefinder camera.

In 1962 Henry Wirgin bought Franka Kamerawerk. Several 35mm viewfinder cameras had been made in the Franka-Kamerawerk in Bayreuth/Oberfranken, for example the one visible in the picture at the right side of this page, an Edixa with builtin selenium meter and a lens with selectors for shutter speed, aperture and distance.

Made in Bayreuth and Wiesbaden were the small Edixa cameras for 16mm film with removable coupled or uncoupled meter, all derived from an original model designed by Heinz Waaske in Wiesbaden and developed and produced in Wiesbaden and Bayreuth as Edixa 16, Franka 16, or, for the Karstadt warehouses, as alka 16.

Waaske left Wirgin since Henry Wirgin had decided to give up camera production sooner or later. Wirgin granted the rights on a new 35mm viewfinder camera to Waaske. This camera was none less than the prototype of what became the famous Rollei 35. Waaske had constructed it at Wirgin company.

In 1967 the Franka-Werk was closed. In 1968 Henry Wirgin closed his original company and continued the production of some camera models in a new smaller plant. In 1971, shortly before its closing, the company introduced a quite modern but heavy SLR camera.

Some cameras sold by Wirgin and its American sales branch Edixa were not made by Wirgin or Franka, mainly the Edixa 8mm movie camera which was made in Japan.

Henry Wirgin died in 1989, in the age of 90 years, in Wiesbaden. He had not only been one of the top entrepreneurs of the West German camera industry, he was also engaged in rewinning normal friendly relationships of non-Jewish Germans to Jewish citizens as chairman of the Society for German-Jewish co-operation.

35mm film

SLR

M42

variants of the Edixa Reflex series:

bayonet

bayonet and M42:

leaf shutter

Prontor focal plane shutter

made by Cosina

16mm film

16mmsubminiature camera:Edixa 16、Edixa 16M、Edixa 16MB、Franka 16

subminiature camera weight dimension lens aperture shutter
1 Edixa16 200g 108x41x33mm 25mm f/2.8 TRAGEVAR 2.8 - 16 1/30 - 1/150
2 Edixa16M 200g 108x41x33mm 25mm f/2.8 SCHNEIDER XENAR 2.8 - 16 1/30 - 1/150
3 Edixa16MB 200g 108x41x33mm 25mm f/2.8 SCHNEIDER XENAR 2.8 - 16 1/30 - 1/150
4 Edixa16 U 200g 108x41x33mm 25mm f/2.8 SCHNEIDER XENAR 2.8 - 16 1/30 - 1/150
5 Franka 16 200g 108x41x33mm 25mm f/2.8 TRAGEVAR 2.8 - 16 1/30 - 1/150
5 alka 16 200g 108x41x33mm 25mm f/2.8 RODENSTOCK TRINAR 2.8 - 16 1/30 - 1/150
Edixa16M front view
Edixa16mm bottom view
:1：Film advance and shutter lever :2：rewind crank :3：counter :3：reverse lock
Edixa16M back view

Film

Edixa16mm21DIN Ektacolor film

Edixa16mm uses Rollei 16 type RADA cartridge，loaded with unperformated 16mm film 。Film width 16mm，frame format 14x21mm，20 exposures per cartridge。

Acessories

  1. chain
  2. genuine leather case
  3. Lens hood
  4. color filter set
  5. 1m close up attachment lens
  6. 0.5m close up lens
  7. 0.25m close up lens
  8. AG1 flash
  9. Development tank
  10. Slide projector
  11. Selenium expousure meter, directly coupled to the shuter

127 film

120 film

External links

General links

In English:

In German:

In French:

Miscellaneous

In English:

In German:

In French:

This article was originally based on "Wirgin" in Camerapedia, retrieved at an unknown date under the GNU Free Documentation License.