The nameplate of this camera bears an ornate ‘Exakta’ inscription, but experts call it Kine-Ekzakta. The secret is simple: using the terminology of the thirties, this is the world’s first “film single-lens reflex camera”, while our contemporaries would call it “the first full-frame DSLR”.

Before the release of “Kine-Ekzakta” in 1936, the smallest SLR camera shot on wide roll film and was rather bulky. The chief designer of the German company Ihagee, Karl Nüchterlein, was haunted by the frenzied popularity of “Leica” designed for 35-mm film, the quality of which was constantly growing due to the rapid development of film technology.
Film was produced in huge quantities and was the most affordable photographic material, while allowing the camera to be practically pocket-sized. Ekzakta has combined the compactness of a small-format film frame and the advantages of a mirror viewfinder.

However, in this class “Ekzakta” still was not the leader. A year earlier, at the Leningrad GOMZ, Alexander Gelgar designed a “Helvette” with a mirror viewfinder and interchangeable lenses.
Later this camera would become known as “Sport”, but its serial production would only begin in 1937 with no camera-based photographic system emergence. The camera had not a single interchangeable lens, only a normal 50 mm lens could be used with it.
Historians from all over the world still cannot find the common ground of who was the first: the “Sport” or “Exakta”. But, no matter what, the German camera has turned into a system camera with a huge number of interchangeable lenses and a variety of accessories.