Pre-WWII Kodak Retina II 142 (1937-1939)

This Kodak Retina II (142) was made in the Kodak AG - Dr Nagel Werk factory in Stuttgart-Wangen, Germany, a year or two before the start of the Second World War in Europe. The list price in the Kodak Stores' catalog for 1938 was $140, equivalent in buying power to about $2,500 in depreciated 2020 dollars.

Front

Right

Left

Top

Bottom

Back

Interior

The camera is a folding 35mm camera with chrome and black leather finish on a light alloy body. The range finder is coupled to the lens and has a separate eyepiece from the viewfinder. The lens is an uncoated f/2 50mm Schneider Kreuznach Retina-Xenon in a rim set Deckel Compur-Rapid shutter that runs from 1/500 second to 1 second plus bulb and is not synchronized for flash. The lens focuses as close as 3.5 ft. Advancing the film does not automatically cock the shutter. Before taking a picture the shutter needs to be cocked using the lever near the top of the shutter. The shutter release is on the body and is interlocked with the shutter and film advance to prevent double exposures or skipped frames. The aperture setting is by a lever near the bottom of the lens. The camera takes 35mm film in standard daylight loading magazines. The exposure counter needs to be reset manually after loading film and counts up from zero. A depth of field calculator and a tripod socket are located on the bottom of the camera.

The first Retina camera (See the post for October 30, 2018) was a scale focuser and was called simply the Retina. The subsequent scale focusing models were renamed Retina I when the rangefinder focusing Retina II came out. Kodak had a number of different cameras with the Retina II name. The initial Retina II (122) has a lever wind film advance. That model was not a success and was replaced by the Retina II (142) with a knob wind film advance. The number 142 Retina has a circle around the "II" to show that it is a different (and more reliable) model. The post-war Retina II is a different design with a combined viewfinder-rangefinder eyepiece. It is based on a pre-war Retina IIa that was not sold in the US.

One odd thing about the 142 Retina II is that the rangefinder eyepiece looks through an opening in the rewind shaft.  I guess this was done to widen the rangefinder baseline.  There is a catch that locks the rewind shaft with the opening in position for using the rangefinder.  To rewind the film you move the rewind/advance lever to "R" and hold the catch while rotating the rewind knob.  The take-up spool grips the film leader tightly and it takes some force to pull the leader off the take-up spool. If you try to rewind the film all the way into the cassette, the force needed to pull the film from the take-up spool can scratch the film. Instead of trying to rewind the film all the way into the cassette, it is a good idea to leave the leader out and unhook the film from the take-up spool after you open the camera back

Retinas were quality cameras in a class with the best cameras made in Germany. Although not cheap, they still were less expensive than a Leica or Contax, and they took good pictures. The US Kodak most like the Retina II was the Bantam Special (see the post for November 7, 2018).