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| 1951 Diax 1 | 1952-56 Diax 1a | 1953 Diaxette | 1951-54 Diax II | 1954-56 Diax IIa | |
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blank | blank | blank | blank |
| 1956-57 Diax Ib | 1956-57 Diax IIb | blank | blank | blank | blank |
| The
Diax camera was the brainchild of Walter Voss who moved quickly after
World War 2 to join manufacturers determined to reassert Germany’s
place as the world leader in photographic equipment. Voss
registered the name Diax in 1945 and the first Diax cameras were on the
market in 1947; just in time to catch the worldwide wave of enthusiasm
for amateur photography. The company Walter Voss Photokamera-Fabrikation & Feinmechanik established in 1946 was a tiny enterprise. In 1948 when production was well under way, there were only nine staff. Over the ten years of production, the maximum staff complement was 64 and over that ten-year period, the company produced and sold around 100 000 Diax cameras worldwide in direct competition with the products of companies like Zeiss and Voigtlander. Voss seems to have selected the name “Diax” for much the same reasons that George Eastman selected “Kodak”. The name is short, unique and easily recognisable across national and language boundaries. The “a” and “b” series were true system cameras in the mould of the Voigtlander Prominent. The Diax system included 10 lens types covering 6 focal lengths with a common filter thread size of 40.5mm, proximeters, a reflex housing by Sperling, reproduction stand, add-on rangefinder and viewfinders including a universal finder by Steinheil. Diax production ended in December 1957. |