Zeiss Ikon Maximar1927

History

The Zeiss Ikon merger of 1926 was one of the defining consolidations in camera industry history. Before the merger, German camera production was fragmented across dozens of manufacturers; afterwards, Zeiss Ikon commanded a dominant position in the European market. The Maximar was one of the first products rationalised and marketed under the new Zeiss Ikon brand, absorbing and superseding equivalent plate folders from the constituent companies.

The 9x12cm format was the European professional standard for portable photography in the 1920s -- equivalent in some respects to what 4x5 would become in the American market. It produced negatives large enough for contact printing or modest enlargement, and the format was well served by the existing supply chain for glass plates and later cut film. Ground-glass composition made the Maximar suitable for careful architectural, landscape, and studio work; it was not a press camera.

By the late 1930s, the dominant format had shifted toward 35mm and medium-format roll film for portable work. The Maximar line did not evolve significantly and was eventually discontinued as the market moved on. Zeiss Ikon redirected development resources toward the Contax rangefinder (introduced 1932) and the Super Ikonta folder series.

Why It Matters

The Zeiss Ikon Maximar is notable primarily as a product of the Zeiss Ikon consolidation -- it represents the rationalised, quality-controlled output of the merged German camera industry at its immediate postwar peak. The Tessar lens fitted to most examples is optically significant: the four-element Tessar formula, designed by Paul Rudolph at Zeiss in 1902, was widely regarded as the best general-purpose lens of its class and was copied under various names by manufacturers worldwide.

For practitioners of large-format photography, the Maximar represents the lightweight end of proper technical camera practice. It is not a monorail view camera and cannot match the movements of a full field camera, but it offers ground-glass composition and a degree of optical quality that was unmatched in a folding camera of its size class at the time.

The camera also illustrates the transitional moment in German camera history when the consolidated Zeiss Ikon was simultaneously building modern precision instruments (the Contax) and rationalising an older plate-folder tradition that was already being displaced.

References

• Camera-Wiki: Zeiss Ikon Maximar -- variant listing, format options, and technical notes