Kodak Retina IIIS
The Kodak Retina IIIS was the remarkable culmination to the Retina III line of cameras. At first glance, it is recognizable to any photographer familiar with the Retina IIIC, but those surface similarities help mask a major design evolution. While most Retina IIIC users don’t consider the camera as a “system” camera, capable of changing optics for wider or more telephoto focal lengths, it is possible… albeit with limitations. The Retina IIIC actually only changed out the front optic stack, with another stack left in place behind the shutter, and your options were limited to only a 35mm and an 80mm optic. With these additional optics in place, it rendered the Retina IIIC unable to be collapsed. So, while these options were better than nothing, they remained less than ideal and still very limited.
In 1958, Kodak AG, the German branch of Kodak responsible for the design and build of the Retina cameras, introduced the IIIS. The IIIS incorporated a significant upgrade: you could interchange the entire lens! Additionally, the mount was the same as the already existing Retina Reflex SLR system. This allowed IIIS users to mount lenses ranging from a 28mm to a 200mm, with a 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm in between. Similar to what Leica had done a few years earlier with the M3, the Retina IIIS offered multiple frame lines in the viewfinder for the 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 135mm lenses. Kodak kept the behind-the-lens leaf shutter in place and, that combination, makes the IIIS one of the most versatile leaf-shutter rangefinder cameras in history. Since these lenses were designed for an SLR, they can be easily adapted to many modern systems.
The camera’s other features will be pretty familiar to Retina IIIC users: film advance lever on the bottom of the camera, a frame counter that counts down, interlocked shutter/aperture wheels to maintain consistent exposure, excellent Schneider and Rodenstock lenses, and so forth.
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