1949-1950: Hungary: Gamma Duflex:

Jeno Dulovits, born 1903, was a famous photographer in Hungary, shooting mostly with Leica rangefinders. He saw the limitations of that and other similar cameras and started working on something better. In 1939 he had thought out a solution, even built some of it in cardboard, what was later to be the DUlovits reFLEX - Duflex. In 1943 he patented some of his ideas, and he had Gamma factory in Budapest make the first working prototype in '44. A production agreement with Gamma was signed in '46, and first manual test production started in 1947. Very few were produced that year, only a handful prototypes, but it marked the beginning. Some more test samples were produced until the end of June 1948. By that time most of the necessary production tools were in place, and the first series production was about to finally start. But at the end of 1948 only 50 sets of parts and lenses had been produced in the factory. They were still waiting for some parts to be delivered from other factories. So, early 1949 marked the first complete series produced cameras. The rest of the first half of 1949 saw only another 74 produced cameras, while another 50 were produced during the following three months. During October and November, 280 more pieces were made, while December ended with another 80. These cameras had added a seventh digit to the s/n. The Artar lens changed name to Gammar, also introducing a coating. Only 10 or 11 Duflex cameras were finally produced in the beginning of 1950 before the production ended. So, the total number of cameras series produced from 1948 till early 1950 was very limited, most likely less than 550 altogether, all according to historian Zoltan Fejer. (Hungarian Cameras, Budapest 2001.)
This very in-depth story also shows that the Duflex was not series produced in 1947, as has been the common opinion until recently. The series production, if one can use that phrase when only some 550 pieces were produced during 1 1/2 year, started shortly before the Italian Rectaflex, but hit the general market some months later, still before the Swiss Alpa Prisma Reflex and the East German Contax S, to mention the 4 pioneers to make it to the market while still in the 40s.

Nevertheless, the Duflex was ahead of its time. It featured Instant Return Mirror, only known from the not so successful gravity based version on the german Praktiflex of 1938. On the Duflex, it was mechanically operated. This was a huge step in camera construction. Further, it featured an internal automatic diaphragm control, some ten years before others would show the same. The third "first" was the focal plane metal curtain shutter. The viewer was not a pentaprism type, although that had been planned at a time, but rather a Porro prism, an arrangement of mirrors that would bring the light beams in through the lens, then reflected via mirrors upwards, to the right, downwards and finally backwards to meet the eye in a standing, sideways correct image.

A really sensational camera!

For a deeper examination of the history of the first eye level SLRs: The Origin: