The Zeiss Ikon company was founded in 1926 as a merge between the leading four camera makers in Germany: Contessa Nettel, Ernemann, Goerz and Ica. This Maximar was an Ica model. When I bought this one the bellows was horrible so I had to change the leather otherwise it would be impossible to use it. Bellows have normally three layers. Fabric in the inner side, trapezoidal pieces of paper (thicker then normal paper) and leather from the outside. Now it is not original anymore but at least it is usable. The flaw in the painting on the left side of the lens was the price sticker ! I bought it in a trade show in Holland and the "specialized vendor" could not find a better place to apply it. I was a bit stupid too. Next time I will wet it with solvent (white spirit) before attempting to peel it off.

Interesting about this camera is the shutter. Every leaf shutter has to open and close a set of blades so they have a mecanism to do it with different speeds according to the pressure on a spring. But for very low speeds (below 1/50 more or less) it is not possible to make the spring looser and looser because it has to move after all. The solution is to add another mecanism to slow down the spring. To give it more work. There are basically two types of mechanical devices for that: one is the common clockwork and the other is the one that fits this Maximar: the pneumatic. When the spring is forcing the blades to close a "hammer" acts upon a cylinder where air has to pass through a small hole. That takes time. Just the time needed to allow more light reaching the film ! Up to one second in this case. I think it is clever. On top of that, this one you don't have to cock. Just act the shutter lever and it is always ready. You can see the cylinder is on top of the disk on top or the lens.
Lens is Doppel Anastigmat Litonar f1:4.5 13,5 cm. Format is 9x12 cm and of course it has a ground glass focusing needed to use the rising and cross front movements.(to see what is the effect of rising the lens go to   F.Deckel   page) This camera is solid and well constructed. There were hundreds of models that from the distance look like that. One must have it in hands to fell the quality of materials and design.

...and for those who think plate cameras are troublesome to use, maybe you are just lazy:


That was in a german book Knipse Aber Richtig, von Wolf H.Döring DWB - 1931