Werlisa Color1968

History

Certex was a Spanish industrial concern that produced a range of consumer goods in the post-war period. The Werlisa line of cameras occupied the low end of the Spanish photographic market during the 1960s and into the 1970s, providing accessible entry-level cameras at a time when imported German and Japanese cameras carried significant tariff premiums in Spain.

The Color variant appeared in the late 1960s as consumer colour film became the mainstream standard for amateur photography across Western Europe. Spanish manufacturing of consumer cameras was relatively limited in scale and largely unknown outside the Iberian peninsula; the Werlisa brand did not achieve international distribution and is today obscure outside collector circles interested in Spanish photographic history.

Why It Matters

The Werlisa Color is a minor but genuine artefact of the Spanish industrial and consumer culture of the late Franco era. Like the East European Smena or the British Halina, it illustrates how domestic camera manufacturing in countries outside the dominant optical industries (Germany, Japan) served national consumer markets with simple, affordable tools. For collectors interested in the broader geography of 20th-century photographic manufacturing, cameras like the Werlisa Color fill in a picture that is often dominated by German and Japanese makers.

Photographically, results from the Werlisa Color are typical of the genre: soft toward the edges, with limited depth-of-field control and shutter speed flexibility. These characteristics place it in the category of cameras valued for their limitations as much as their capabilities by contemporary experimental film photographers.

Sample Photographers / Notable Use

• Used by Spanish amateur photographers in the late 1960s and 1970s for family and tourist photography.

References