Back from the dead? Not quite. I looked into who's using iconic photography brand names like Agfa, Minolta, Rollei any Yashica today and what I discovered shocked me

Date:
Sun, 26 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Description:
Some camera brands died long ago but their names live on under new
management. Here are some of the most notable 'orphaned' brands in the camera industry that have nothing to do with the original companies

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member
features. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter There are certain brand names that are indelibly linked to classic photography. Names like Agfa, Minolta, Rollei, and Yashica bring to mind the so-called golden age of analog imagery, having propelled the medium from a fringe area of experimentation to a mainstream, commercially viable industry.

Their products were amongst the best film cameras for beginners all the way
to pros. However, times change and not every brand, whether they were iconic or not, made the transition into the digital age with equal success. But what value is there in a name? It turns out quite a lot, actually. Have you ever wondered what happened to some of these once household names, only to stumble upon a product emblazoned with very familiar lettering in a department store, or in the recesses of the internet you normally visit to find DIY
accessories? Article continues below You may like The best film cameras old and new, based on in-depth testing Will we ever see a new FinePix? Unlikely says Fujifilm the future is in premium compacts Is niche the new normal? These oddball retro cameras are setting the tone for 2026

This happened to me recently, while I was standing in a queue at a budget
high street hardware store and I noticed a pile of AA batteries with Agfa titles on them. Wait, Agfa still exists? Apparently so, but not necessarily
as you might remember it from the good old days.

You see, names live on, but the companies that own the rights to them change behind the scenes, without the general public ever realising what has happened. Sometimes, this is through understandable industry consolidation brands like Manfrotto , Gitzo, Lowepro, and Sachtler , who make some of the best tripods and the best camera bags , are all currently owned and operated by Videndum plc, for example but in other cases, the exchange is far less predictable. Brand names carry with them loyalty and pedigree, the value of which can far exceed that of the original company itself. Therefore, the name can be sold as an independent asset or acquired when a failing company is bought out and repurposed. This can lead to the name being used on products that have no affiliation or direct connection with the company and products that originally used them. So what are some of these orphan brand names in
the photography industry? I spent an eye-opening weekend digging into the history of some long-dead companies that seem to live on in corporate purgatory. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. AgfaPhoto The initial Agfa company can trace its history all the way back to the mid-19th Century, where it started life as a dye production business. Over
the next 150 years, it grew into one of the most successful and
well-respected film manufacturers, producing some of my favorite emulsions like the monochrome Agfa APX 100 and 400 and the legendary Ultra 100, known for its rich colors and used to great effect by equally legendary photographers like Martin Parr.

The digital age was not kind to Agfa, unfortunately, and the turn of the century saw the struggling imaging division sold off. It limped on for
another year as an independent entity known as AgfaPhoto GmbH, but eventual bankruptcy was inevitable. While Agfa still exists and prospers in other industries ranging from healthcare to Green Hydrogen Solutions (yes, your guess is as good as mine as to what that means), the imaging division is a little harder to trace.

AgfaPhoto Holding GmbH is all that remains of the parent company, but it licenses the name to various other firms that make imaging-centric products. Lupus Imaging & Media uses the name on an assortment of disposable cameras
and memory cards, while Germany-based Plawa has an exclusive arrangement to use the AgfaPhoto name on digital cameras. What to read next Camcorders are back but read this before backing the $200 Yashica Journey 4K CP+ 2026 live: the latest camera gear at the world's biggest photography show The indie camera brand We will keep making unique cameras says Sigma's CEO (Image credit: AgfaPhoto) It currently produces the OPTIMA series of compact
cameras, which are basic but suitable for casual everyday photographers. A glance at the specs shows that they still use CCD sensors rather than the
CMOS units more commonly found in modern digital cameras, perhaps showing a reliance on the vintage blueprints used at the time of AgfaPhotos insolvency.

Adding to the complexity of the arrangements, many of these products are manufactured by a third (or is it fourth?) party in Europe or China, notably Ferrania of Italy, which itself has a complicated history of film production. As for those batteries I encountered bearing the AgfaPhoto name, those are made under license by GBT-Batteries, headquartered in Germany but made in China.

In short, if you see a camera, accessory, or indeed anything with AgfaPhoto written on it, it certainly hasnt been produced by the Agfa we all used to know and love. As for Green Hydrogen, the Agfa corporate site confidently tells me that I need a ZIRFON membrane inside your electrolyzer.

Dont we all. Yashica This is another brand that you would have been happy to see on the shelves of many a camera shop in the latter half of the 20th century. It was born in Japan in 1949 as Yashima, becoming Yashica after it expanded and acquired the Nicca Camera Company, which allowed it to enter the 35mm rangefinder market.

It holds the prestigious record for introducing the first-ever commercially viable electronically-controlled 35mm camera, the Yashica Electro 35, so it was an undisputed major player in the already brutally competitive camera market.

In a familiar turn of events, as this competition heated up over the decades, Yashica, by now owned by a ceramics company called Kyocera, was struggling to make money. Under Kyocera's leadership which also owned another iconic name, Contax Yashica had moved away from being a top-level professional camera manufacturer to a more budget-friendly consumer-level brand.

Finally, in 2005, production of all Yashica-branded products ceased and it entered a dormant state for three years. (Image credit: Yashica) Then, in 2008, Kyocera sold the rights to use the Yashica name to MF Jebsen Group, a conglomerate based in Hong Kong. Under their management, the Yashica Y35 was released in 2017, a retro-styled camera designed to resemble the aforementioned Electro 35, and more recently, the Yashica FX-D 100 Digital Film Simulation Camera, followed by a cheap camcorder , the world's smallest mirrorless camera , and even night vision binoculars .

Some of these products are clearly a world apart from the original Yashica, but the FX-D 100 has the look of a traditional Yashica SLR, with Yashica written on the chassis. However, the core company is entirely different from the one that launched the brand all those years ago. Best Yashica camera
deals Yashica FX-D 100 249 View See all prices Yashica MF-1 37.66 View See
all prices Yashica City 200 216.99 View See all prices We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices powered by Minolta The technology of this once great independent camera brand found new life when Konica Minolta were bought by Sony in 2006. Since the assets Sony acquired included the lens mount and associated tech, this became the foundation for the Alpha camera family, which has gone forward to claim a significant share of the mirrorless market (albeit now with the E mount).

But look around the lesser-seen recesses of the internet, and in some
consumer retailers, and you might still find a camera or two bearing the Minolta name. If Minolta as an independent entity ceased to exist, and Sony now owns the rights to use it, how can this be? Sony is pragmatic, but it's not the type of corporation to readily license it's intellectual property without a highly profitable cause. (Image credit: Minolta) The truth is, it didnt. Nor did it use the Minolta name on any products which, as it turns
out, was the problem. Under various countries laws, firms can only retain ownership of a brand name if they are actively using it on active products. Since Minolta lay dormant, it was snapped up by JMM Lee Properties, LLC a California-based company that specializes in acquiring brand names with expired licenses.

JMM then licensed the name to New York-based Elite Brands Inc., who uses it
on its own basic digital cameras and other products such as dash cams. If you see a Minolta camera, it has nothing to do with Konica Minolta or Sony. Or Minolta for that matter. Rollei Once again, this is a case of the parent company collapsing, leaving an orphaned, yet valuable, name. Rolleiflex went bust in the early 2000s and, as so often happens in these cases, the companys assets were divided up.

This seems to be less of a tragic example as some of the others mentioned here, because at least Rollei as an entity has sort of lived on as an
offshoot of that original company, although under new ownership. The company is now called Rollei GmbH & Co. KG and it still markets Rollei-branded photo products.

Thats not to say new 'Rollei' cameras are still made by Rollei to Rollei specifications, and the trail goes cold when digging to find out exactly who currently holds the licenses to manufacture Rollei lenses, for example. It seems that 7Artisans currently makes the Rollei AF mirrorless optics, including the 85mm f/1.8 for Nikon Z and Sony E mounts. (Image credit:
Rollei) (Image credit: Rollei) Meanwhile, the Rollei 35AF Camera Lens for the Rollei 35AF film camera is made by Mint Camera, and the Rolleiflex Hy6 mod2 medium format film camera system is produced by DW Photo, under license. The latter is actually quite uplifting since these cameras are made in very small batches, sometimes to order, in the former Rollei factory in Braunschweig, Germany.

Theres something about this setup which feels wholesome, and I can imagine a group of analog enthusiasts lovingly continuing the work of Rollei employees of decades long since passed.

It might not be like that at all, but its a far more positive outcome than some of the other examples on this list. Rollei 35AF deals No price information Check Amazon We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices powered by Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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