About
this site.
Origin.
The
original website was the brainchild of Hugo Ruys (1938-2024). A Dutch national,
Hugo collected since 1975 all aspects of the Ihagee Steenbergen
& Co company. This included all cameras, lenses and other products as well
as non-Ihagee equipment and documentation. The main
focus was on the Exakta camera of 1934 and its successor models through the
1970’s. Hugo expanded his efforts into the history of the Ihagee
company (East and West) and its founder/owner Johan Steenbergen. This world
preeminent collector sadly passed away in December 2024, aged 86.
Current Status
Since
2016, the site and domain name are owned by the Stichting
Steenbergen Caerus, a Dutch charitable foundation. The site is managed by Mr.
Dikkers, representative of the foundation and great-nephew of Johan
Steenbergen.
Copyright
The
information on this site is free to view. The copyright remains with the owner
of the site and / or the descendants of Johan Steenbergen.
Exakta
Community
The
website forms a link for members of the British Exakta Circle and the French
Exakta Ihagee Club de France (EICF). Many collectors
are Dutch and there are close ties with the Dutch Society of Photographica Collectors "Fotografica".
Supporters
of this site
Over the
decades, many people supplied information (articles, scans of documents,
pictures, reports, data) for this site. With advance apologies for omissions,
the following have made considerable contributions:
Hein
Ehrhardt, then president of the Steenbergen Foundation, author of "My
uncle Steenbergen."
Svend
Erik Jeppesen, author of the Danish articles.
Gary
Cullen and Klaus Rademaker on the lens data from "Exakta Obscurities"
Frans de Gruijter, author of the article on the
disappeared mercury batteries.
The
Exakta Ihagee Club de France, allowing publication of
older articles from the magazine l'Exacta.
Michel
Rouah for the lens data in his book Exakta Collection.
Evgeny Shovikov, provider of the Russian material.
Mark Stuecheli and Jim Focht, providers of an enormous amount of
scanned material, mostly from the USA.
The
participants in the Topica Exakta Discussion group.
Michael
Higgins & Ove Davidsen, providing research on Exakta lens resolution.
Rainer Dierchen, provider of a lot of material in the German
language.
Michael Sorms (Lukoszek) for scans of all
Ihagee Repair Manuals, Spare Parts Lists and many
patents.
Heinrich
Degen, providing scans of many folders and brochures in German.
Peter Lanczak, providing a really immense amount of information.
Olaf Nattenberg, author of the article on "The Largest
Exakta Exhibition in the World" in German.
John
Richardson, who supplied various contents.
Valentin
Sama, author of the articles in Foto-Video Actualidad.
Additional
information, questions, comments
If you
have remarks or questions about Ihagee, its products
and history, its founder Johan Steenbergen or about this site, please contact
us at:
Emails
can be in Dutch, French or German, in addition to English, of course.