I acquired dozens of cameras over the years, amounting to several collections, but never got into Exakta. However, I did talk a friend into doing so. One of my biggest collecting scores occurred in a small shop in the wilds of Utah while shopping for a self-timer accessory to replace the one which had just blown up on me. A very dusty display item buried in among many others: Exakta VXIIa, mounting a late model Zeiss Biotar 75mm 1.5. ($150). It became a souvenir for my friend to enhance his collection.

Excellent, thanks for doing this. Just came across these, trying to look for a decent condition one. This info really helps.

Very interesting trip through the range, fascinating video, I adore the VX Varex 11a simply a work of art. Kind regards John Moore.

Great collection! I got hooked on Prakticas years ago. Not hard to find and affordable.

Fascinating. I recently bought a Kine Exacta 1936 Version 1 (round window) at auction. It is currently in Gorlitz being serviced. To fill the space I picked up an Exa 500 and an RTL1000 because it had a MOG Oreston on it 😄

You have a great collection and I enjoyed seeing and listening to your knowledge of the Exakta line. I also collected a few starting with the Varex VX and think the Exakta are the most beautiful of my camera collection. I agree with you that the quality of the camera was going downhill starting with the 11B, my model winds roughly and the VX1000 even winds worse like you said, feeling the shutter could break. By the early 60s Pentacon was pressing in on Ihagee and the state no longer wanted to support this foreign owned company since it was wrapped up in so many legal battles, R&D department barely functioned and the company was allowed to die a slow death.

I am loving this video, as a professional giggity I feel that it is simply my pride and passion and this video truly helped me in disecting the oranges I found in the skibidi. Although I am old around 79 my samsung smart toaster is still collapsing the economy as much as the germans. This video has inspired me to reach beyond lengths reachable by even the massive trumpet. The quantam nasa computer cannot cope with such tedious amounts of X squared and as such the Exakta Camera Collection brings me to tears of joy once again.

Great content!

Very interesting my vx1000 sill works fine after 50 years all the Exakta's from the IIa suffer from the winder problem but the VX had the additional problem of the mirror not dropping in some camera's I have read it was more a change lubrication used from the IIa onwards you have to remember Exakta's on the whole still work whereas many other's packed in decades ago

Thank you, I learned a lot.

I saw an Exakta VX 1000 with a Carl Zeiss lens at the old market in Skopje for only 20 euros. Was trying to figure out what it was.

Thank you for your video. How do you select the long pause / slow speed on the right button? Do you need first to put the left speed on a given position? Other than that question, my base Exacta works well.

Huh. I had a Vx500. It ran fine for years. And the lens was overly sharp: too much detail.

How do I tell what I have, I don’t see speeds of 1000, but I do have removable view finder?

Have you seen any Exacta Jr.'s? They shoot in 127 format and wider than 3x2

Hi! An exakta varex iib noob here! does anyone know how I can remove and attach new lenses to it?