The Camera Site

Reporter (Foinix Ori) 1953

Reporter rebadged Foinix Ori was sold by Kaufhof department stores in Germany in early fiffties. It is hard to find anything special or unique to the other contemporary folding cameras from this Reporter camera. I found one when I was trying to get out the film, which was left inside the camera I bought at a local flea market.
The job can't be done by lifting a rewind knob as usually but by pulling out the knob opposite to this on the bottom of the camera.
Focusing in collecting German horizontally oriented folding bed 6x6 cameras would be a task enough for of many years. Most well-known and unfamiliar manufacturers alike made this type of cameras actually all over the world during the fiffties.

The economic miracle in Germany (Marshall Plan) after WWII developed many smaller camera manufacturers, which have been forgotten today. For example, the lens manufacturer Heinz Kilfitt in Munich, Adox, as a camera maker, from Wiesbaden,etc.

One of those forgotten pioneers was Karl Foitzik, the founder of Foitzik-Kamerawerke that between years 1951 and 1958 manufactured a variety of handy and predominantly inexpensive cameras which were exported over 60 countries. In 1909, Karl Foitzik was born in 1909 as the fifth son of the mining employees Joseph Foitzik in Schomberg in Bytom / Upper Silesia. After studies of mechanical engineering Karl Foitzik practiced six months at Carl Zeiss Jena. During this time the his decision to establish a camera factory grew up. He was not a lonely wolf because in the euphoric mood after the end of the war about 70 new camera factories was founded in West Germany. After failed attempts in other cities Karl Foitzik got a friendly and enthusiastic acceptance in Trier and in 1949 the factory was alive. At it's best there were over 170 employees and ever since the the very beginning the cameras was selling good. Such modelnames like "Foica" and the successors "Foizica" and "Unca" came out from the production line. Before the end in 1958 a "Foinix II" with interchangeable lenses (M 39) and the plan of a binocular production was under a realization. A significant reason to cease the production was Japanese Invasion

Manfred Helbach, a member of the Photographic Society of Trier, has after many years of collecting German cameras from the fifties found an especial interest in his home town produced Foinix-Kameras. But not only the equipment but also the historic environment has been full of surprises. Helbachs collection in Holy Cross produced cameras and historic documents is a funny piece of post-war German history. "The more I delved into Foitzik-Kameras, the more I was also fascinated by the strong personality of Karl Foitzik, as a successful entrepreneur," explained Helbach, whose collection was to be seen in a local bank, Sparkasse.

Augenschmaus für Liebhaber: 50 Jahre alte Foinix-Kameras, präsentiert von der Sparkasse in der Theodor-Heuss-Allee.

Yes, She's Sophia Loren.
Foto: Sparkasse