Diax L-1 and leather case

Diax L-1 Scale Focus Camera Review – by Simon Foale

This elegant little 35mm fixed-lens compact belonged to my partner’s late father. It was the last model in a relatively little-known and idiosyncratic line of cameras made in Germany between 1947 and 1957 by Walter Voss. Fortunately my partner’s dad looked after the camera well and it’s still in almost perfect working condition and even has the chic mid-20th-century brown leather case, which perhaps now adds a little hipster (non-vegan) cachet. The L-1 was apparently ‘not very successful’ in its day and is supposedly rare now. Paradoxically its rareness does not make it particularly expensive on the second-hand market. It was released in 1957, the same year that the Diax factory closed.