Heinz Kilfitt

Vintage SLR cameras – the Mecaflex

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The Mecaflex is a 35mm SLR made by German designer Heinz Kilfitt, who is better known for having designed the successful Robot camera, and high precision lenses such as the Macro Kilar, and Voigtländer Zoomar (the first 35mm zoom lens). Presented at Photokina in 1951, it was first sold in 1953, they were manufactured for Kilfitt by Metz Apparatefabrik located in Fürth, Bavaria (West Germany). Production by Metz continued until 1958 but few units were actually built. Metz, dissatisfied with the collaboration withdrew from the partnership shortly afterwards. Production then shifted to Société d’Etude et Recherche Optique et Acoustique (S.E.R.O.A.) a camera maker in Monaco. This camera is better known as the Kilfitt Mecaflex, with the lenses also produced by Kilfitt.

Fig.1: The Mecaflex camera

It was a very aesthetically pleasing and compact camera at 9×6.5×6.5cm. However it was quite heavy at 700g. It had a flip-top cover which gave it very clean lines when closed. When opened to 90 degrees, the cover revealed the waist-level viewfinder and top-plate controls. The size of its exposures was a smaller 24×24mm, providing for more images on a film roll (some 50). One of interesting features was an early spring-loaded diaphragm. When the shutter and spring-loaded diaphragm mechanism of the Mecaflex are cocked, a bright, parallax-free ground-glass image appears, and this remains bright until the shutter is released. A push-up finder was also provided as an accessory. which could be inserted into the viewfinder

Like many other West German cameras, it too incorporated a Prontor behind-the-lens leaf shutter with speeds of 1 to 1/300s (+B). The camera had a bayonet mount, and used lenses designed by Kilfitt, and it was usually paired with a Kilar 40mm f/3.5 or f/2.8. The other lenses were the 40mm Makro-Kilar’s and Tele-Kilar 105mm f/4.5. Some additional lenses were made under license by SOM Berthiot (Paris). The camera was produced until 1958. It is possible to still find these for around C$1300-2000.

Specifications:

Type: 35mm SLR camera
Manufacturer: Metz (West Germany) ver.1, Kilfitt ver.2
Model: Mecaflex
Production period: 1953−1958
Format: 24×24mm on 135 film
Lens mount: bayonet
Standard lens: Kilar 40mm f/3.5
Shutter: leaf-shutter, Prontor-Reflex behind-the-lens
Shutter speeds: 1 to 1/300 sec., B (1 to 1/250s, B in the SEROA camera)
Viewfinder: waist-level viewfinder + central split-image rangefinder
Mirror: yes
Exposure meter: −
Flash synchronization: X, M
Self-timer: −
Aperture control: −
Film advance: lever wind
Weight/dimensions: 700 grams / 900×650×650mm

The Grand Kilar?

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In a 1956 copy of Popular Photography, there was an article on the German lens maker Kilfitt. In the article, reference was made to a 180mm f/1.9 lens called the Grand-Kilar… there was even a picture. But did this lens actually exist? Well according to vague literature, it appeared in 1955, a 4-element lens, designed by A. Burger. But brochures of the early 1960’s show nothing in the way of 180mm lenses. It does appear in various editions of Arthur Cox’s “Photographic optics” in the 1960s, however searching the net does not seem to yield anything in the way of tangible proof to suggest any exist today. Perhaps very few were actually manufactured. In comparison the to SLR, it seems like a massive lens for the period.

Vintage lens makers – Heinz Kilfitt (Germany)

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If it were not for one particular point in time, Kilfitt may not be as well known a brand as it is. That event was the use of the Kilfitt Fern-Kilar f/5.6 400mm lens in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie “Rear Window”, where the lens, as well as the Exakta camera it was attached to, played a prominent role in the movie (in fact no other camera/lens combination likely ever had such a leading role).

Kilfitt was one of the most innovative lens makers of the 1950s. Born in Westphalia in 1898, Heinz Kilfitt had quite a pedigree for design. Before the war he had established his reputation designing the Robot I camera (24×24mm format), the first motorized camera, introduced in 1934. Rejected by Agfa and Kodak, Kilfitt partnered with Hans-Heinrich Berning to develop the camera. In 1939 Kilfitt sold his interests in the Robot to Berning. In Munich, Kilfitt acquired a small optical company, Werkstätte für Präzisionsoptik und Mechanik GmbH, where he began developing lenses for the like of 35mm systems.

The Kilfott lens used in Rear Window.

By the end of the war in 1945 Kilfitt had very little left, basically a run-down plant, and few workers. He started a camera repair shop for US army personnel, and by 1948 had started to manufacture precision lenses. Kilfitt devoted himself to what he considered an inherent problem with the photographic industry – the lack of lens mount universality. Every camera had to have its own set of lenses. This led him to introduce the “basic lens” system in 1949. In this system, each lens was supplied with a “short mount”, the rear of which had a male thread which accommodated a series of adapters [1]. Some for SLR, some for C-mount, or reflex housings.

Like many independent lens companies, Kilfitt produced a series of lenses which could be adapted to almost any camera by means of lens mounts. One of their core brands was Kilar.

While the company is famous for its telephoto lenses, it actually specialized in another area: macro. Early SLR lenses such as the Biotar 58mm f/2 were able to focus as close as 18 inches, which likely seemed quite amazing, considering the best a rangefinder could do was 60-100cm. Kilfitt thought he could do better, producing the world’s first 35mm macro lens, the 40mm f/2.8 Makro-Kilar in 1955 [3]. It would be what Norman Rothschild called the first “infinity-to-gnats’-eyeball” [2]. It was offered in two versions: one that focuses from ∞ to 10cm, with a reproduction of 1:2, and one that focused from ∞ to 5cm, with 1:1.

The early version of the Makro-Kilar, showing the Edixa-Reflex version.

Heinz Kilfitt also continued developing cameras. The Kilfitt-Reflex 6×6 appeared around 1952, a camera that had a new system for quickly changing lenses, a complex viewfinder and a swing-back mirror. It influenced the design of other 6×6 format cameras, e.g. Kowa 6. There was also the Mecaflex SLR, another 24×24mm camera produced from 1953-1958 (first by Metz Apparatefabrik, Fürth, Germany later by S.E.R.A.O. Monaco). It was constructed by Heinz Kilfitt, who also supplied the lenses (Kilfitt Kamerabau, Vaduz, Liechtenstein).

LensSmallest apertureAOVShortest focusWeight
40mm Makro-Kilar f/2.8f/2254°2-4″150g
90mm Makro-Kilar f/2.8f/2228°8″480g
135mm KILAR f/3.8f/3218°60″260g
150mm KILAR f/3.5f/2216°60″400g
300mm TELE-KILAR f/5.6f/328°120″990g
300mm PAN-TELE-KILAR f/4f/328°66″1930g
400mm FERN-KILAR f/4f/456°30′1760g
400mm SPORT-FERN-KILAR f/4f/456°16′2720g
600mm SPORT-FERN-KILAR f/5.6f/454°35′4080g
The more commonly available Kilfitt lenses

When Heinz Kilfitt retired in 1968 he sold the company to Dr. Back, who operated it under the Zoomar name from its headquarters in Long Island, New York. Dr. Back designed the first production 35mm SLR zoom, the famous 36-82/2.8 Zoomar in 1959. The company eventually transitioned the brand to Zoomar-Kilfitt, and then merged it completely into Zoomar. By this stage the company was providing lenses for 12.84×17.12mm, 24×36mm and 56×56mm cameras. The most notable addition to the line-up was a Macro Zoomar 50-125mm f/4.

The lens selection provided by Zoomar-Kilfitt

Note that the Zoomar lenses are often cited as products of Kilfitt, however although some of them may have been produced in the Kilfitt factories, Zoomar was its own entity. Kilfitt was contracted to manufacture the groundbreaking 1960 Zoomar 36-82mm lens for Voigtländer.

The evolution of the Kilfitt brand logos

Notable lenses: FERN-KILAR 400mm f/4, Makro-Kilar 40mm f/2.8

Further reading:

  1. Norman Rothschild, “An updated view of the Kilfitt system”, The Camera Craftsman, 10(2), pp.10-15 (1964)
  2. Norman Rothschild, “The revolution in SLR lenses”, Popular Photography, (60(6), pp.90-91,130-131 (1967)
  3. Berkowitz, G., “New.. Makro Kilar Lens”, Popular Photography, pp.86-87,106,108 (Mar, 1955)
  4. Kilfitt Optik, Photo But More
  5. ROBOT – Who came up with the idea? Kilfitt or Berning? Two genealogists come together to new discoveries…, fotosaurier (2021) article in German