[Leica] Re: So.. what is the deal with Alpa Cameras?

[jcb at visualimpressions.com (JCB)]

I personally knew the owners of Pignons S.A., Samual Bourgeois and his son 
Benjamin, and visited them many times during the late 60's and 70's. They 
even made some custom Alpas for me. The new MF Alpa has nothing to do with 
the old Alpa company. The new folks bought the Alpa name. Alpa history can 
be seen at:

http://www.alpa.ch/en/about/history.html

JB


At 08:31 PM 3/15/2005, Seth Rosner wrote:
>Aha!
>
>Eric, this very high quality MF camera is the successor to a line of very 
>high quality Swiss 35mm cameras whose prodution started in the 1940's by a 
>company called Pignons, S.A. in Ballaigues, Suisse, that also manufactured 
>parts, gears, levers etc. for the top-line Swiss watch manufacturers. They 
>were very quirky; early models were rangefinders, next lines featured both 
>rangefinder and reflex focusing in the same camera (!!!)and the final 
>models were strictly SLRs. Alpa made no lenses. They were furnished in 
>Alpa mount by Kern, Schneider-Kreuznach, Angenieux, Kilfitt.
>
>Their quirkiness made them relatively uinsuitable for what our group terms 
>photjournailsm or street photography as they are slow and counterintuitive 
>(e.g. the film advance-shutter cock lever protrudes from the front of the 
>camera and is drawn clockwise toward the rear!!!) Thus it is very slow and 
>deliberate in operation and was used more by scientists, laboratory and 
>research people than by PJ's.
>
>Tom Abrahamssen, who used to collect them, describes having disassembled a 
>very early model of which he said the shutter mechanism and gear train for 
>the delayed action release were like the inside of a Patek Philippe or 
>Rolex watch while the rest of the camera looked like it came from a Soviet 
>tractor factory! Later models are magnificently made, rivaling even 
>contemporaneous Leitz and Zeiss production.
>
>Take a look at the history that I believe is on the Alpa website. Capaul 
>and Weber are a Swiss couple who bought the Alpa name and mark from the 
>receiver in bankruptcy in about 1990 and proceeded to design and 
>manufacture this current Alpa camera that is built to space station 
>quality levels, nothing automatic whatever. They too do not make lenses 
>which are still produced for the Alpa by some of the world's finest optics 
>manufacturers.
>
>I have had several Alpa's and 50mm lenses recently and still have a 
>collector camera/lens combo like-new in box.
>
>Seth