The Ihagee company was founded in Dresden, Germany in 1912 by Johan Steenbergen, a young man from Meppel, The Netherlands. Originally, the company was named Industrie- und Handelsgesellschaft; later, the abbreviation IHG was written as it is pronounced (in German): eehahgay and incorporated in the official name. Actually, the company has changed its name and structure several times; here with Ihagee I mean all these companies.

Ihagee has produced many camera types, some rather common but also some interesting models. In particular the Patent Klappreflex was unusual. It was a single lens bellows reflex that folded (the klapp) in a special way (the patent). It also produced bellows and macro extension rings, microscope adapters, flash equipment and enlargers. Lenses were always supplied by other companies.

World fame came with the Exakta. In 1933 it was a compact single lens reflex for roll film; this model is now called the Standard-Exakta (Vest Pocket Exakta in English speaking countries). In 1936 the Kine-Exakta was the world's first single lens reflex that used the now standard cine film and the 24x36 mm picture size.

Steenbergen had a Jewish wife and, although she was an American citizen, he considered it wise to leave Germany and go to the USA in 1942. He never saw Dresden and his company again.

In february 1945 Dresden, a very beautiful city, was heavily bombed because it was so beautiful. The allies hoped this would demoralise the Germans so much that they would end the war. That didn't happen but the Ihagee factory was destroyed. Only a few machines and some parts, stored elsewhere, were recovered a few months later.

The last Exakta models keeping some features of the original 1936 design were the Exakta VX 1000 and VX 500. In 1969 Ihagee was incorporated into Pentacon.

In the 2000s the brand name Exakta was used by Pentacon GmbH for compact digital and film cameras; as of 2008 the brand is certainly still owned by that company but is not used any more.

Pentacon in later years outsourced the manufacturing of lenses, and just like certain Pentacon lenses, some of the Exakta lenses were manufactured in Japan.