Robot Electronic1972

History

The Robot spring-motor tradition began in 1934 with the original Robot I, designed by Heinz Kilfitt and manufactured by Otto Berning. Every camera in the Robot civilian line through the 1960s — the Robot II, IIa, III, IIIa, Star, Royal, Vollautomat — relied on the same fundamental clockwork advance mechanism. The spring motor was Robot's identity.

By the late 1960s, electric motor drives were becoming commercially viable for compact cameras, and the spring motor — which required periodic rewind and stored only 8-10 frames per charge — was an operational constraint compared to an electric motor running from a battery pack. The Robot Electronic resolved this constraint directly: the electric motor would advance as long as the battery held charge, offering indefinitely sustained rapid-sequence shooting.

The Robot Electronic arrived in 1972, the same year that 35mm SLRs with motor drive options were becoming standard professional tools. Within a few years of the Electronic's introduction, the Robot brand had largely exited the general-use photographic market and concentrated on Robot Recorder cameras for document copying, traffic enforcement, industrial monitoring, and surveillance — markets where the Robot's compact form and rapid-sequence advance found application outside mainstream photography.

The Robot Electronic thus marks the end of the Robot rangefinder-era civilian line that ran from 1934 to 1972.

Why It Matters

The Robot Electronic is the terminus of one of the most distinctive camera lineages in 35mm photography. From the original 1934 Robot I through to the Electronic, Otto Berning sustained a single coherent design philosophy — compact, spring- or motor-driven, square-format, rapid-sequence — for nearly four decades. No other camera manufacturer maintained a single-body concept for as long.

For collectors, the Robot Electronic represents the end of an era: the last Robot designed for a photographer to carry into the street, a press assignment, or a scientific expedition in the civilian sense. Subsequent Robot cameras were purpose-built for industrial and institutional clients rather than individual photographers.

The transition also illustrates a broader 1970s shift in German precision camera manufacturing: spring-motor and clockwork mechanisms, which had given German cameras their distinctive operational character, were being retired in favor of electronics — a change from which several German manufacturers did not emerge.

Lenses & Accessories

The Robot bayonet mount on the Electronic accepts the established Robot-compatible lens lineup:

• Schneider Xenar 38mm f/2.8 — standard Tessar-type, compact and sharp
• Schneider Xenon 38mm f/1.9 — six-element fast lens
• Schneider Tele-Xenar 75mm f/3.8 — short telephoto
• AA battery compartment is integral to the grip; no external motor drive attachment is needed or available

Sample Photographers / Notable Use

• Used by German press and documentary photographers in the early 1970s who required the Robot's rapid-sequence capability without the interruption of spring rewinding.
• Adopted in scientific and industrial monitoring contexts — a precursor to the fully institutionalized Robot Recorder deployments that followed.
• Represents the last Robot in the hands of civilian photographers before the brand shifted to institutional and surveillance markets.

References

• Camera-Wiki: Robot Electronic