The Robot II was a mechanical

135 film 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film used for still photography. It is a film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine – also referred to as a casse ...

camera by

Robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

introduced in 1938. It was a slightly larger camera than the

Robot I A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

, with some significant improvements but still using the basic mechanism. Among the standard objectives were 3 cm Zeiss Tessar and a 3 cm Zeiss Tessar in 1:2,8 and 1:3,5 variations, a 1:2,0/40 mm Zeiss Biotar and 1:4/7,5 cm Zeiss Sonnar. The film cassette system was redesigned but it was only with the Robot IIa launched in 1951 that film could accept a standard 35 mm cassette. The special Robot cassettes type-N continued their role for take up. A small

bakelite Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, better known as Bakelite ( ), is a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. The first plastic made from synthetic components, it was developed ...

box was sold to allow people to rewind colour film into the original cassettes as demanded by the film processing companies. The camera was synchronized for flash. The swinging

viewfinder In photography, a viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose, and, in many cases, to focus the picture. Most viewfinders are separate, and suffer parallax, while the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main ...

was retained but now operated by a lever rather than moving the entire housing. Both the deep purple filter and the yellow filter were eliminated in the redesign. Some versions were available with a double wind motor which could expose 50 frames. The

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

stopped civilian production of the Robot but it was used as a

gun camera Gun cameras are cameras mounted on a gun, used to photograph or record from its perspective. They are typically used on the weapons of military aircraft and operate either when the gun is fired or at the operator's will. Gun cameras are used for ...

by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

. The Robot II took square photographs in the 24×24mm format, which allowed 50 exposures to fit on a 36-exposure film. It featured an all-metal Rotor shutter (1/4 to 1/500), a direct vision finder, and a screw mount for interchangeable lenses by Schneider. The standard lens is a Schneider Xenon 40 mm f1.9. Also available was the Robot Star II/50, with a double spring motor for 50 exposures and a Xenar 38 mm f2.8 lens.

External links

Robot IIa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robot Ii Cameras