K.W. Reflex Box Camera A Mid 1930's SLR Box From The Producers Of Praktica!
- Kamera Ostalgie
- Dec 10, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 3
This is a rather oddball camera, a sort of crossover between a single lens reflex and a box camera, similar I suppose to a couple of Houghtons cameras made in the same period. However, this camera is from Dresden Germany and is a product of Kamera-Werkstatten Guthe & Thorsch, better known of course as K.W.
It really is a strange piece of kit, pictured on it's side like the photo above, at first glance, it just looks like an ordinary box camera. But if we turn it over and open up the viewfinder it looks like this below which is more like a typical late 1920's early 1930's single lens reflex camera.
I have to admit, I know very little about this camera, or maybe more accurately, I know absolutely nothing about this camera at all to be honest! Anyway, come on, lets see what we can find out about the K.W. Box Reflex then. It could be quite an interesting journey.
Lets start with the manufacturers, Kamera-Werkstatten Guthe and Thorsch. K.W. were started in 1919, just after the end of the Great War, in where else, but Dresden, Germany. It was founded by Paul Guthe & Benno Thorsch. They are probably more well known for the Patent Etui, a well made folding plate camera with a very thin and compact back, and the Pilot and Pilot Super 6 cameras and of course the Praktiflex and Praktica cameras, before they were absorbed into the Soviet VEB Pentacon group. So the makers of this K.W. box had a long and interesting history, surviving the dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin before falling foul of the forced mergers of the many photographic companies into VEB's in this case Volkseigener Betrieb Kamera und Kinowerke Dresden in 1959, then VEB Pentacon Dresden in 1964. The last true K.W. designs were probably the K.W. Praktica IV of 1959 pictured below and the Praktina. By 1960, the black front and the K.W. logo of the Praktica IV had been replaced and it was branded as a Pentacon camera.
What of the K.W. box camera itself? Well it was fitted with a Reflex-Box Anastigmat lens 6.3/10.5cm, marked K.W. Dresden.
The camera has four apertures, 6.3, 8, 11, & 16, the focus starts at 2meters up to infinity, and is marked, 2,3,4,5,6, 10 and infinity. The lens plate is of an unusual design with an Art Deco style black enamel plate with polished metal edging. The focus is adjusted by a metal lever with an arrow at the end. The apertures run in a curved cut out channel with little recesses where the actual aperture positions are.
The shutter controls are a little unusual, a polished alloy grid, similar in concept to the aperture control, but in this case marked B, T & M, with just three speeds, 25th, 50th and 100th of a second. The grid grate sort of set up is similar to the gear change grid gate on a 1940's Mk 6 Bentley with the set path for selection.
So to fire the shutter you select your speed with the controls pictured on the left above, charge your shutter with the lever that you will find next to your right thumb, then press the lever that is set to M above ( press not slide, like you would if you were selecting M) and away you go. You will know if the shutter has gone off, due to a crash and a rumble inside the box accompanied by lots of vibration!
How you got a sharp image with this much vibration God knows, apart from sitting it on a tripod and then just hoping. There is a little rectangle with a circle inside it, next to the shutter release that may be some kind of remote shutter release, but I'm not sure what you were supposed to use to press or trigger it.
At the moment, I can't use the box as the body release lever is not releasing the front third of the camera and I can't put a film in!
As far as I can make out, the lever that you can see in the the top left of the picture above is
supposed to release the body for film loading! At present it is not! Once opened the camera takes standard 120 film on which it produces 8 images of 6x9cm. By the looks of things the focus screen is life size so you really do see exactly what you get, but the image is a little on the dull side. It may benefit from having a new screen cut to size and fitted.
Lets have a look around the Box, it really is an unusual camera.
The case is really well made of top quality German hide, it was really dirty when acquired and as dry as a bone, however it has done its job and protected the camera really well. The case is coming too a bit now, after repeat treatments of leather conditioner.
So there you have it, a guided tour of the Reflex Box in pictures.
There seems to be some confusion over the dates of it being produced, some bloggers saying 1934 other saying 1937, but there is evidence that it started production in 1933 which sounds about right, it looks more like a product of the early 1930's rather as of the late 1930's as some suggest.
Some suggest that it came after the Pilot 6 and has the Pilot 6 shutter, but I think the Box Reflex was first and the Pilot 6 has the Box Reflex Shutter. Initially just by looks and design, but this advert backs it up as it calls the Pilot 6 'this new Roll Film Reflex' it does not call the Reflex Box new in the same advert! Why would it it was from 4 years earlier! Plus there is evidence the Pilot 6 started being produced in 1936 so it all ties in. These BJA books are great, when I was a kid, my Dad had loads of these from the 1930's, I read them like comics from cover to cover! So I think we can safely go on that these were produced from 1933 to 1938 and production stopped roughly late 1938 which would tie in nicely with the move to the new K.W. factory in 1939, a good time to stop production of a then old and out dated design. Well that's my thoughts, of course I may be wrong!
So lets have a look at the variations of this camera over its five or so years of production in Dresden, the camera capital of the the Third Reich in 1930's Germany.
It seems there were various lenses available, I think the one above was the standard lens, the 6.3 Reflex-Box Anastigmat of 10.5cm. There are examples fitted with a Laack Pololyt f4.5, 10.5cm lens with a proper iris diaphragm as opposed to the simple revolving plate with different sized round holes as was fitted to the 6.3 Reflex Box Anastigmat. There are examples with the Steinheil 4.5 Actinar of 10.5cm and a cheaper Steinheil Actinar of f 6.3. I'm sure that there will be further examples fitted with different lenses come to light.
Other variations I have noticed are that some examples have two windows which would suggest dual format. Some have a central spirit level on the top off the box, like this example here
Others had clips on the front to retain it like the example below.
The front shutter speed control cover is an alloy cover on some examples and a brass one on others.
So that is it, a review of the K.W.Reflex Box camera of 1933. A very interesting camera I think you will agree. I just need to un jam my example to get a film in it and try it out.
I will leave you with this thought, I am as you know a huge fan of Houghton Cameras, look at this image below, I think the lads at K.W. had a look at the Houghton Reflex Box of a few years before when they designed their little box! Am I right?
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Take care,
Phil
