C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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The Robot Vollautomat (1958) is a spring-motor 35mm camera producing 24x24mm square frames, manufactured by Otto Berning & Co. in Dusseldorf, Germany. The Vollautomat — the name translates roughly as "fully automatic" — distinguished itself from earlier spring-motor Robots by incorporating a selenium photocell coupled to the leaf shutter's aperture and speed controls, allowing the camera to set exposure automatically in good light without battery power.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →C41
Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
View profile →C41
Kodak UltraMax 400 is a versatile consumer-grade ISO 400 daylight-balanced color negative film with T-grain emulsion, delivering warm Kodak colors, fine-for-speed grain (PGI 46), and wide exposure latitude. Currently in production and available globally as a single-roll and multi-pack.
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Before you buy used
About this camera
The 1958 Robot Vollautomat added a selenium-coupled auto-exposure system to the spring-motor 24x24mm Robot, making it the first "fully automatic" camera in the Robot civilian line.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm, 24x24mm square (~50 exp per 36-exp roll) |
| Mount | Robot bayonet |
| Year introduced | 1958 |
| Standard lens | Schneider Xenar 38mm f/2.8 |
| Shutter | Leaf: 1/30s – 1/500s + B |
| Flash sync | 1/30s |
| Film advance | Spring motor (approx. 8–10 frames per wind) |
| Meter | Selenium photocell, battery-free |
| Exposure | Auto-coupled; manual override available |
| Viewfinder | Optical direct, no rangefinder |
| Battery | None required (selenium meter) |
By the mid-1950s the spring-motor Robot line had established a stable civilian identity through the Robot Star and Robot Royal series. The Robot Star offered a rangefinder and a clean manual-exposure workflow; the Robot Royal extended the format to 24x36mm. The Vollautomat represented a different direction: rather than adding a rangefinder or expanding the format, it added automatic exposure to the existing 24x24mm spring-motor body.
The late 1950s were defined by the mainstreaming of auto-exposure in German and Japanese compact cameras. Agfa, Voigtlander, and Kodak all introduced selenium-coupled automatics in this period. The Vollautomat positioned Robot within that trend while retaining the spring-motor rapid-sequence capability that differentiated the brand from all other auto-exposure compacts of the era.
The Vollautomat was produced into the early 1960s. The Robot line continued with the Robot Recorder (for industrial and scientific use) and the Robot Star series before culminating in the Robot Electronic (1972), which replaced the spring motor with an electric motor drive and adopted more modern exposure electronics.
The Robot Vollautomat is the pivot point between the mechanical spring-motor Robot tradition and the electronic era. It is the only Robot in the civilian line that combines the original spring-motor drive — the core feature that made Robot cameras distinctive from their 1934 introduction — with a selenium auto-exposure system. No battery is required for the meter, which gives it a practical durability advantage over later battery-dependent automatics.
For collectors, the Vollautomat is an unusual intersection of two usually separate camera categories: the German precision spring-motor camera and the late-1950s selenium automatic. It is less well known than the Robot Star or Robot Royal, and working examples in good condition are genuinely uncommon.
The Robot bayonet mount accepts the range of Robot-compatible Schneider-Kreuznach lenses, though the leaf shutter body affects which lenses are compatible compared to the focal-plane Robot II and IIa series:
C41
Kodak ColorPlus 200 is an affordable, consumer-oriented daylight-balanced color negative film at ISO 200. Known for warm, slightly muted color rendition, fine grain, and wide exposure latitude, it is currently in production and widely available in Asia and select global markets.
View profile →BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →Robot Vollautomat
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