13 and 10 researched events on one shared scale. Pentacon / Praktica 1919–present, Rollei 1920–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.
Kamera-Werkstaetten Guthe & Thorsch grew in Dresden-Niedersedlitz and passed into the Noble family era. The works built the technical and manufacturing base from which the Praktiflex and Praktica SLR lines emerged, while remaining distinct from the Zeiss Ikon branch that later contributed the Pentacon name.
Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke founded Franke & Heidecke in Braunschweig on 1 February 1920. The firm first concentrated on stereo cameras, beginning with the plate-based Heidoscop. The roll-film Rolleidoscop of 1926 provided the first documented use of the Rollei name, conventionally explained from roll film and Heidecke, and supplied the mechanical and optical starting point for a compact twin-lens camera.
Über 100 Jahre Rollei / Unsere Geschichte · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik · New Reels: The Rolleiflex Adventure, Press Dossier
A small prototype series was presented in December 1928 and the commercial Rolleiflex reached the market in 1929. The original camera made six 6×6cm exposures on 117/B1 film. The 1932 Standard adopted 120 film and added crank advance and an exposure counter after first-frame alignment. A 4×4 Rolleiflex on 127 film appeared in 1931, and the simpler Rolleicord line followed in 1933. Franke & Heidecke moved into a new Braunschweig factory in 1930.
Rolleiflex camera · The Rolleiflex Old Standard - the First Rollei to Shoot 120 Film · The Rolleiflex Guide · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik · New Reels: The Rolleiflex Adventure, Press Dossier
The 1937 Rolleiflex Automat sensed the start of the film, eliminated the red-window loading step, coupled crank advance with shutter cocking, and reduced accidental blank or double exposures. During the Second World War civilian camera output contracted as the factory produced military optics. A bombing raid on 15 October 1944 destroyed much of the Braunschweig plant, and occupation restrictions constrained the immediate restart.
The Rolleiflex Guide · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik · New Reels: The Rolleiflex Adventure, Press Dossier
The Praktiflex placed a compact 35 mm reflex body and interchangeable screw-mount lens at the center of the Niedersedlitz program. Wartime disruption and postwar dispossession broke the private company, but Siegfried Boehm and the factory carried the camera concept into the state-owned period.
Postwar production rebuilt the Automat and Rolleicord lines. The 1945-generation Automat could carry a Zeiss Tessar or Schneider Xenar, and the 1950 models added coated optics and flash synchronization. The first f/2.8 Rolleiflex appeared in 1950; the 2.8C of 1953 offered Schneider Xenotar or Zeiss Planar taking lenses. The Rolleimarin underwater housing entered series production in 1954.
Über 100 Jahre Rollei / Unsere Geschichte · Press Release: Rollei turns 100 · The Rolleiflex Guide · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik · New Reels: The Rolleiflex Adventure, Press Dossier
The first Praktica appeared in 1949 with the M42 x 1 lens thread. FX generations added flash synchronization and internal diaphragm actuation, while Praktina and Praktisix projects showed that the same works could pursue proprietary professional and medium-format systems alongside the mass-market Praktica.
Vintage Manuals · Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Heritage
The E and F generations integrated photoelectric meters and, on the F models, coupled them to shutter-speed and aperture controls. The Tele-Rolleiflex of 1959 used a 135mm f/4 Sonnar and the Wide-Angle Rolleiflex of 1961 used a 55mm f/4 Distagon. The company became Rollei-Werke Franke & Heidecke in 1962. Zeiss Planar and Schneider Xenotar options remained important parallel optical supply paths rather than separate body families.
History of camera and cine lenses: How it all began · The Rolleiflex Guide · Rollei (Franke & Heidecke) · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik · New Reels: The Rolleiflex Adventure, Press Dossier
The East German state combined Kinowerke Dresden, Kamera-Werke Niedersedlitz, Altissa, Aspecta, and Welta as VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke Dresden. The new enterprise inherited overlapping cameras, projectors, factories, and skills, then began pruning and reorganizing them for coordinated production.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke Dresden became VEB Pentacon Dresden in 1964. The new name joined the symbolism of five constituent factories with the established Contax-derived Pentacon camera name; Praktica, Pentina, Penti, and the new Pentacon Six remained product identities within the enterprise.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
Praktica mat introduced through-the-lens metering in 1965, and the PL loading system followed in 1967. The nova, Super TL, and PL electronic branches translated these advances into cameras aimed at different levels of automation without abandoning the broad M42 lens system.
Vintage Manuals · Entwicklung der Dresdner Fotoindustrie · Heritage
Rollei moved beyond fixed-lens TLRs with the modular Rolleiflex SL66 medium-format SLR in 1966 and the compact Rollei 35. The SL35 opened a 35mm SLR branch in 1970 using the Rollei bayonet commonly called QBM. Period literature identifies lenses designed by Zeiss and Schneider, while the SL66 catalog states that lenses could be made by Carl Zeiss or by the Rollei group under Zeiss license. The company expanded into Singapore in the early 1970s and presented the electronically controlled SLX in 1974.
Rolleiflex SL35 Camera System · The Rolleiflex SL66 Camera System · Press Release: Rollei turns 100 · Rollei (Franke & Heidecke) · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik
Pentacon became the parent works of a combine in 1968, bringing the Goerlitz optical works and eastern Ihagee organization into a wider production network; other plants followed. Pentacon labels increasingly replaced older maker names, although design origin and factory responsibility remained product-specific.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998
The Praktica L platform introduced a metal-blade focal-plane shutter and supported a large family of mechanical, metered, electrically coupled, interchangeable-finder, and automatic-exposure bodies. LLC, PLC, VLC, EE, LTL, MTL, and Super TL variants kept M42 central for two decades.
Continuous series production of the traditional TLR line ended in 1976, though special editions and later revivals followed. The SLX entered production as Rollei's electronic 6×6 platform, and the 6006 and SL2000F developed related electronic and modular ideas. Financial collapse in 1981 broke the old company structure; operations continued from 1982 as Rollei Fototechnic under new ownership. A 1973 factory notice also shows that 2.8F and 3.5F production could change from Planar to Xenotar without changing the camera stock number, a warning against identifying body generation from lens maker alone.
Serial numbers dating your camera · Rollei (Franke & Heidecke) · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik · Rolleiflex 2.8F and 3.5F Lens Change Product Notice
Praktica B cameras replaced the screw thread with an electrically coupled bayonet. B 200, B 100, BC, BCA, BCC, BCS, BM, and BMS bodies shared the new interface, while adapters accepted M42 lenses with reduced automation. Prakticar lenses became the native optical vocabulary.
Vintage Manuals · Praktica cameras and lenses · Praktica Lenses
Kombinat VEB Pentacon entered the larger Carl Zeiss Jena combine in 1985. Cameras, lenses, and precision products were now planned inside an even broader state organization, just as the BX generation attempted to modernize the Praktica bayonet line before political and monetary union.
Pentacon: Kamera- und Optiktradition aus Sachsen · Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998 · Heritage
The 2.8GX of 1987 revived the twin-lens form with modern metering and electronics rather than restoring uninterrupted mass production. The 6008 followed in 1988, and later 6000-system models added autofocus, digital backs, and new controls. Rolleiflex 4.0FW and later FX versions again placed TLR construction beside modern professional systems. These products used different serial conventions from the classic pre-1976 TLR ranges.
Über 100 Jahre Rollei / Unsere Geschichte · Rolleiflex 6008 Professional, prova sul campo · Rolleiflex TLR Documents · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik
Pentacon Dresden GmbH was formed in July 1990, but the Treuhand announced liquidation on 2 October. The decision dismantled the large state enterprise, displaced thousands of workers, and scattered assets and records. Schneider and Noble successors carried different pieces of the Dresden tradition forward.
Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden, 1945-1998 · 02.10.1990: Die erste grosse Insolvenz
A smaller Schneider-associated successor began work in Dresden in 1991 and later became PENTACON GmbH Foto- und Feinwerktechnik. It continued the Praktica BX 20 S into 2001 while shifting toward precision engineering and scanner products; later branded compacts did not represent the old SLR factory system.
History of Schneider-Kreuznach · VEB Pentacon Dresden - Vom DDR-Grossbetrieb zum Niedergang des Dresdner Kamerabaus
After Dresden SLR production ended, Praktica continued on imported compact and digital cameras and later outdoor optics. Pentacon GmbH ceased operating and was removed from the register in 2024, while Praktica Limited maintains the consumer brand: continuity of name without continuity of the historic camera works.
Heritage · VEB Pentacon Dresden - Vom DDR-Grossbetrieb zum Niedergang des Dresdner Kamerabaus
Rollei Produktion was separated in 2004, and Franke & Heidecke GmbH continued professional-camera manufacture from 2005. Consumer and professional activities were divided among separate businesses. The Hy6 medium-format platform was introduced in 2007, but Franke & Heidecke entered insolvency in 2009. DHW Fototechnik emerged as a production and service successor using the Braunschweig site and inherited technical capability.
Rollei (Franke & Heidecke) · Company Time Line - History of Rolleiflex, Franke und Heidecke, DHW-Fototechnik
DHW later failed, and DW Photo continued a narrower Braunschweig-based manufacturing, repair, and upgrade business. Its current service list includes Hy6, 6000-series, SL66, SL35, and all Rolleiflex TLR versions. Separately, the current Rollei consumer business states that the old camera manufacturer no longer exists in that form and that worldwide Rollei brand rights have belonged to a newer company since 2010; the current retail site is operated by RCP Handels GmbH & Co. KG. These are distinct forms of continuity and should not be merged into one legal manufacturer.
Press Release: Rollei turns 100 · Service · Rollei (Franke & Heidecke) · DW Photo - Products of the former Franke & Heidecke company · Impressum
Read either maker on its own: Pentacon / Praktica · Rollei
