12 and 12 researched events on one shared scale. Agfa 1867–present, Konica 1873–present.
The axis stretches where either maker has research and collapses where neither does, so a year sits opposite the same year on both. Event counts differ because research depth differs, not because one company did less.
Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Carl Alexander von Martius established a dye works at Rummelsburg near Berlin in 1867. The enterprise became the Actien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrication on 21 July 1873. Agfa therefore uses 1867 as its historical origin, while 1873 is the legal incorporation date documented by the Bavarian historical study.
Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling lithographic and photographic tools and materials at Konishiya Rokubeiten in Kojimachi, Tokyo, then established his own Konishi Honten business in Nihonbashi. By 1882 the firm was making lightproof photographic boxes, an early move from importing and retailing into domestic production.
History: 1873-1959 Cameras and Film—The Beginnings / Steps to a Global Company · Company Overview
The dye business expanded into photographic chemistry and sensitized materials. Separately, Alexander Heinrich Rietzschel established a Munich optical works in 1896, patented the Linear 4.5 lens in 1898, and introduced the Clack camera in 1900. Bayer acquired 80 percent of Rietzschel in 1921 and the remainder in 1924; Agfa, Bayer's photographic interests, and Rietzschel entered I.G. Farben in 1925.
AGFAの歩み · Agfa AG · Rietzschel
The company expanded practical manufacturing around photography and lithography, building the skills needed to supply a young Japanese photographic culture. That foundation led to the 1903 Sakura Hakkin photographic paper and Cherry Hand Camera, products that joined the light-sensitive material and the picture-making instrument under one house.
History: 1873-1959 Cameras and Film—The Beginnings / Steps to a Global Company · Replica of Cherry Portable Camera
The Cherry Hand Camera appeared in 1903 as a branded, mass-produced Japanese camera for amateur use, while Sakura paper anchored the materials side. Konishi Honten broadened the camera range during the following decades, founded a professional photography school in 1923, and introduced Sakura Film for general photography in 1929.
History: 1873-1959 Cameras and Film—The Beginnings / Steps to a Global Company · Systematic Survey on 35 mm High End Camera · Replica of Cherry Portable Camera
Agfa established the Wolfen raw-film works in 1909. Under the I.G. Farben division of labor, Wolfen made film and developers, Leverkusen made photographic paper, and Munich made cameras and laboratory equipment. In 1936 Wolfen introduced Agfacolor-Neu, whose anchored color couplers made a commercially practical multilayer process that differed from Agfa's earlier additive color plates.
Agfa AG · A short history of colour photography · 1170: Rohfilm
The Konishi Professional School of Photography linked the company to photographic education, while Sakura Film brought in-house sensitized-material production to general photographers. The business reorganized as a joint-stock company in 1936 and announced Sakura Natural Color Film in 1940, the first Japanese-made color film in the company's chronology.
History: 1873-1959 Cameras and Film—The Beginnings / Steps to a Global Company · Systematic Survey on 35 mm High End Camera
The Munich works moved from transitional Rietzschel-Agfa products into broad Agfa-branded camera production: the Standard plate camera in 1926, Billy folding roll-film cameras from 1928, Isolar plate cameras in 1929, 6x9 box cameras from 1930, and the Karat 35mm and Isorette/Isolette medium-format folding families from 1937. These families used different formats, fixed-lens packages, shutters, and body-number practices.
Fotokamera-Baureihen von AGFA · Agfa Seriennummern - Agfa serial numbers
As Konishiroku became an incorporated photographic manufacturer, its prewar Pearl folding cameras shared the range with sensitized materials and optical work. During the war the company developed and produced military aerial cameras. Civilian production resumed afterward, and the Konica I brought the Konica name to a 35mm camera by 1948.
History: 1873-1959 Cameras and Film—The Beginnings / Steps to a Global Company · Systematic Survey on 35 mm High End Camera · Konishiroku Konica I Cs
Agfa production was redirected toward military, state, and Nazi Party demand. The Munich camera works made aircraft and weapons-related parts and used foreign forced labor from 1942. In September 1944, at the works' request, the SS transferred 500 women from Ravensbrück into a Munich Camera Works subcamp administered through Dachau; later transports followed.
Agfa AG · Außenlager München Kamera-Werke (Agfa) / Munich Camera Works (Agfa) Subcamp
The former I.G. Farben Agfa works were separated by occupation zones. Wolfen was dismantled in part, operated as a Soviet reparations enterprise, and became a DDR state enterprise. Munich resumed camera manufacture under Allied controls and material shortages. West German Agfa camera and photofabrication companies were formed as Bayer subsidiaries in 1952-1953, marketed jointly from 1954, and combined in 1957 as Agfa Aktiengesellschaft Leverkusen und München.
The fixed-lens Konica I established a durable camera brand within Konishiroku, alongside Pearl folding cameras and other popular formats. Hexar and Hexanon names became closely associated with the firm's lenses. In 1960 the ambitious Konica F carried the company into interchangeable-lens 35mm SLRs with a fast metal focal-plane shutter.
Systematic Survey on 35 mm High End Camera · Optical Products · Konishiroku Konica I Cs · Konica F, record 103310371208
The postwar camera range moved from Record and Isolette folders and the Clack/Click transition cameras into the fixed-lens 35mm Silette family, the interchangeable-lens Ambi-Silette, the Agfaflex/Colorflex/Selectaflex reflex branch, and the 1959 Optima programmed-exposure line. The Selectaflex manual documents a camera-specific quick-change lens system from 35mm to 180mm, while the Silette guide explicitly distinguishes the Ambi-Silette bayonet from the fixed lenses of most Silette and Super Silette variants.
Fotokamera-Baureihen von AGFA · The Silette Guide · Agfa Selectaflex Instructions for Use · Agfa Optima (erstes Modell)
The Konica F introduced a large lens interface and a vertically travelling metal shutter capable of one two-thousandth of a second, but it was expensive and short-lived. Konishiroku kept developing the idea through later reflex cameras, reaching the Auto-Reflex and then the Autoreflex T, whose open-aperture TTL metering worked with automatic Hexanon lenses.
Systematic Survey on 35 mm High End Camera · Konica Autoreflex T Instruction Manual · Konica F, record 103310371208
Agfa answered changing amateur markets with the Rapid system from 1963, Agfamatic 126 cameras from 1970, and 110 pocket cameras from 1972-1974. These cassette systems are not interchangeable. Production was increasingly distributed: Coimbra began amateur-camera manufacture in 1974, and Agfa products were also made in India, Brazil, Spain, Hong Kong, and Manila. Supplier responsibility likewise varied, including separately marked shutters and later external manufacturing.
West German Agfa and Belgium's Gevaert formed the Agfa-Gevaert group through a cross-shareholding structure. In the same year, the East German Wolfen enterprise stopped using Agfa for its photographic materials and adopted ORWO after the postwar trademark arrangement with Agfa Leverkusen ended. These were separate corporate and trademark events and do not make ORWO a West German camera line.
The Auto-Reflex combined a focal-plane shutter, interchangeable lenses and shutter-priority automatic exposure, and could switch between full and half frame. The Autoreflex T moved metering through the lens. Successive AR-mount bodies and Hexanon lenses carried that practical automation into the 1980s before Konica's SLR line wound down.
Systematic Survey on 35 mm High End Camera · Konica Autoreflex T Instruction Manual
The C35EF put a pop-up electronic flash into a compact 35mm camera, with Japanese museum records dating its release to December 1974 and the corporate chronology presenting it as a 1975 milestone. In November 1977 the C35AF added passive triangulation autofocus, turning two frequent causes of failed snapshots into camera-managed tasks.
History: 1960-1979 Innovative World Firsts / Rapid Growth of Copier Business · Konica C35AF, record 103310371356 · Konica C35EF, record 103310371333
The Compact/Optima 935 was the last camera identified by the specialist museum as manufactured at Munich. Agfa's own camera production stopped in 1982 according to the Bavarian corporate history, while the Science Museum Group summarizes the exit as 1983. Agfa-Gevaert then continued to sell amateur equipment made in third countries; the Selectronic name itself covered Munich-built rangefinders and Chinon-produced reflex cameras.
Konica translated camera-lens experience into ultra-precise aspheric plastic optics for compact-disc pickups while continuing photographic work. The Hexar and HEXAR RF kept high-grade 35mm cameras in view, digital Revio models addressed the new market, and camera OEM production grew even as optical components became strategically important.
History: 1980-2002 Digital Age Impact and New Business Challenges · Annual Report 2001 · Optical Products
Konishiroku Photo Industry changed its name to Konica Corporation in 1987 and brought the company's products under the Konica brand. Cameras and films remained visible, but copiers, medical imaging, digital systems and optical components grew in weight. A business-technology partnership with Minolta prepared the ground for their 2003 integration.
History: 1980-2002 Digital Age Impact and New Business Challenges · Annual Report 2001 · History: 2003 onward — Konica and Minolta Integration
Agfa-Gevaert was listed publicly in 1999. In November 2004 it transferred Consumer Imaging assets, liabilities, and about 2,860 employees to the independent AgfaPhoto GmbH. Agfa's own closing announcement emphasized that AgfaPhoto thereafter operated independently. AgfaPhoto GmbH filed for insolvency on 27 May 2005, ending the brief operating-company continuity created by the divestiture.
Konica and Minolta integrated management in 2003. Konica Minolta withdrew from cameras in March 2006, transferred part of the digital-SLR assets to Sony, ended film and paper production on a staged schedule, and completed photo-sales withdrawal in 2007. The current successor remains an imaging and optics company, but not an own-brand camera maker.
History: 2003 onward — Konica and Minolta Integration · Konica Minolta, Withdrawal Plan for Camera Business and Photo Business · Optical Products · Company Overview
Agfa-Gevaert remains a Mortsel-based business-to-business imaging and information-systems group rather than a continuation of the historic Munich consumer-camera factory. Current consumer goods use an AgfaPhoto licensing structure. AgfaPhoto Holding's official imprint states that AgfaPhoto is used under license from Agfa-Gevaert GmbH and that neither Agfa-Gevaert nor AgfaPhoto manufactures, warrants, or supports the licensed products.
