The Praktica B100: “almost a Contax” camera?

Not really. Even if the Praktica B100 (and its lenses) may have been manufactured – at least in part – at locations where Zeiss used to assemble Contax cameras before WWII.

After having spent my hard earned cash on a Contax ST and its impressive Carl-Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 28-85 lens (both manufactured in Japan by Kyocera in the early nineties), I was curious to see what a camera proudly wearing (on the Eastern Block markets) the “Carl-Zeiss Jena” logo was really capable of. I found a very nice/very clean Praktica B100 on the site of Goodwill, and bought it for price of a few lattes at Starbucks.

So, back to Contax, Zeiss, Pentacon and Praktica….

But the truth is that apart from their geographical origin, those Prakticas had very little in common with pre-war Contax cameras, or with the Contax S sold just after the end of WWII – Praktica cameras owed more to designs created originally by another firm from Dresden, K.W (Kamera-Werkstätten Guthe & Thorsch), than to Carl Zeiss’ blueprints.

Although they did not have the right to use the Zeiss and Contax names on the export markets of the West, the East-Germans still tried to associate their line of 35mm SLRs with those prestigious brands: the Praktica cameras sold in the Eastern block wore Carl Zeiss-Jena logos at visible places (as did some of the lenses they were exporting to Western Europe).

The story of Zeiss is as complex and dramatic as Germany’s.

Founded in Jena, and located primarily in the Dresden area, the original Zeiss company suffered from massive aerial bombing during WWII, and from political circumstances in the aftermath of the war. First occupied by the US armed forces, but ultimately located in the Soviet occupation zone, it saw most of its leadership relocated to its Stuttgart offices by the Americans, while the Russians were literally disassembling what was left of its plants and moving them crate by crate to Kiev (Ukraine) as war reparations.

The Praktica brand has never been very strong in the US, and Praktica cameras were often sold under labels such as “Cavalier” or “Hanimex” – Here the STL-I (aka Praktica Super TL) – sold from 1968 to 1976. Note the size of the camera, compared to a Japanese Olympus OM-1n of the same vintage

Lengthy legal disputes with the newly formed West German Carl Zeiss AG led the East German Zeiss entity to lose the use of its own name and brands on the Western markets. Under communist management, the East German Zeiss was progressively diluted into a huge state owned conglomerate named Pentacon, which found itself – at least in the West – relegated to the market of simple and affordable SLRs. Sold under the brand “Praktica”, they were more elaborate than the very rustic Russian Zenit, but increasingly behind the Japanese competition.

In 1979, Praktica finally launched a modern automatic SLR with a bayonet mount, the B200, whose derivatives would be manufactured and sold well after the fall of the Berlin wall.

When the communist regime finally fell and West Germany absorbed its East German counterpart, some divisions of the East German optical industry were reunited with Carl Zeiss AG, but not the Praktica line of business – it had been deemed non-competitive in a capitalist market economy. Production continued on a much smaller scale under the control of another German company, Schneider, until the film SLR activity was ultimately terminated in the early 2000s.

The Praktica B line

At least in the West, Praktica was primarily known for a line a semi-automatic SLRs using the Universal 42mm lens mount (such as the Cavalier shown above), but by the mid seventies, even in the entry-level/learners camera market, the screw mount was becoming a handicap.

Metallic bayonet mount, using electrical contacts to transmit the aperture value – a design still a few years from being adopted by the Japanese industry.

The B200 was the first model of a totally new line of cameras and lenses, and was followed by simplified and cheaper models such as this B100 manufactured in East Germany in 1981 or 1982. The lens (a 50mm f/1.8) was sold as a “Pentacon Prakticar” in the West, while models destined to markets of the Eastern block were labeled “Carl-Zeiss Jena”. Interestingly, my B100 makes no mention of its East German origin, or of the “Zeiss” brand. Not on the body, not on the lens.

What is it like?

With a new battery (a 6 volt 28A cell that you can find in every pharmacy or drugstore), the camera sprang to life immediately. Honestly, I did not expect it (considering previous experiences with Shopgoodwill, and the reputation for questionable reliability of the electronic components designed in the eighties, in particular on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain). The camera and the lens look solid and are well finished – the camera is still mostly made of metal, while the lens is made of a nice plastic (with a lens mount machined from a metal alloy).

Praktica B100 – the shutter speed selected by the camera is shown by a black needle over a scale engraved on the right side of the focusing screen (here somewhere between 1/15th and 1/30th sec)

On paper, the B100 is competing in the same category as the Nikon EM or the Canon AL-1 – namely a simplified Aperture Priority automatic exposure and manual focus camera, providing no direct control of the shutter speed to the photographer (no semi-auto or manual exposure modes). The shutter speed selected by the automatic exposure system is indicated by a needle in the viewfinder, but there is no auto exposure lock or even a simple exposure compensation mechanism (like the +2EV push button of many of those simplified Japanese cameras) – the photographer has to use exposure compensation dial (which equates to playing with the film sensitivity). There is no depth of field preview either.

Canon AV-1 – a camera targeting the same audience as the Praktica B100 – the photographer can only use the camera in auto-exposure/aperture priority mode.

The viewfinder is very decent – large enough, with a fine and relatively luminous focusing screen. Focusing aids include a split image telemeter, surrounded by a ring of microprisms. No reason to complain.

The bayonet lens mount is proprietary. Prime lenses were made in East Germany (a 28mm, a 35mm, a couple of 50mm lenses, a 80mm and a 135mm), and two zoom lenses were sourced from Japan (probably from Sigma): a sliding aperture 35-70, and a sliding aperture 70-210mm. As usual with brands targeting price conscious buyers, wide angle and tele lenses did not sell in large quantities. They tend to be difficult to find nowadays and are comparatively expensive.

How much…buying a Practice B series now…

I still have to shoot a few rolls of film with the camera, but upon a cursory inspection it looks fine (reasonably accurate exposure, light seals in good condition). It’s not the camera I would bring for a trip to the end of the world: it does not offer enough control over the exposure, and I remember that back in the eighties, the B series’ reputation was abysmal when it came to reliability. But the truth is that its perceived quality is much higher than some entry level cameras from the same era (Fuji AX Multi or STX-2 for instance). All in all a pleasant surprise.

Like the Canon AV-1 or the Pentax MV, an over-simplified camera: Automatic, Flash or B – no other option.

The Praktica B series were manufactured from 1979 to 1990, before being superseded by the BX series – which were sold until 2001. The BX were still manual focus cameras (of course) but their internals had been updated, and the industrial design refreshed with more curves and bulges, and much more polycarbonate. The BX cameras were sold in much smaller quantities than the B series (200,000 units before the German re-unification, and 33,000 in the 10 following years, as opposed to 1.1 million over 11 years for the B series).

a clean dark chamber – note some points of rust on the screws and under the winding lever – lots of iron in this camera

This relative scarcity could explain why some late BX series (in particular those with green colored bodies) are so expensive: they are sometimes proposed for more than $1,000 on auction sites. On the other hand, early B series (like the B100 or the B200) can still be found for less than $25.00, which is in line with the price of other amateur/entry-level SLRs from the same vintage.

If you’re really interested in one of those “almost a Contax” cameras, you don’t need to spend much – unless you’re willing to pay to the roof for the privilege of shooting film with the only “made in [re-unified, non-communist] Germany” single lens reflex which is not a Leica R.

Contax ST (with Contax Carl-Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 28-85 f/3.3-4.0 zoom) next to a Praktica B100. The Contax cameras from that era were developed and manufactured by Kyocera in Japan.

More about Praktica cameras

http://praktica.planetaclix.pt

http://www.praktica-collector.de/225_Praktica_B100.htm

Sorry, no picture shot with the Praktica yet – but 2 pictures shot in Paris with another made in Japan (West) German camera , the Leica CL:

Paris – Canal St Martin – Leica CL, Summicron 40mm f/2

Paris – Canal St Martin – Leica CL – Summicron 40mm

Pentaprism, Contax, Pentax and Pentacon

Who created the first 35mm camera, or the first 35mm single lens reflex camera?

Difficult questions. First, you would have to agree on what constitutes exactly a “real” 35mm camera, or a “real” 35mm SLR, and then, you would have to determine what really counts: is it presenting a prototype at a trade show, applying for a patent, launching a limited series production, or inundating the world with tens of thousands copies of a “game changing” camera?

It is generally recognized that with the Leica, Leitz created the first commercially successful 35mm camera in the early twenties, and but it was not until 1932 when they launched the Leica II that the rangefinder camera with interchangeable lens had found its “real” final form.

Foca *** / Olympus OM-1n — Foca *** with a Foca turret viewfinder (left) / Olympus OM-1n (right) The Foca, a French derivative of the pre-war Leica, is a good example of what a rangefinder camera with interchangeable lenses looks like. With its pointy prism housing, the Olympus illustrates the typical SLR shape.

The Contax S

1932 is also the year when Zeiss launched Leica’s most serious pre-war competitor, the Contax.

Zeiss was at that time the largest manufacturer of cameras in the world. They had a long tradition of innovation and a great team of engineers; conscious of the limitations of the rangefinder formula, they kept on working on a better solution until, after the war, they finally presented the Contax S, one of (if not the first) modern 35mm single reflex lens camera.

With its pentaprism, its horizontal curtain shutter and its 42mm screw lens mount, the Contax S was very close to the typical 35mm SLR design, and should have been commercially successful.

contax-S-1950-Pentax-SLRdotcom — Contax S – (second series from 1950). Courtesy of Pentax-SLR.com – the best source of information about early SLRs (not only Pentax)

But at that time, the Zeiss factories were in the Russian occupation zone (soon to become the German Democratic Republic) and all sorts of issues slowed down the roll-out to production: the Contax S only started to be mass produced at the very end of 1949. The launch of the Contax S also coincided with the start the Cold War – products from communist countries were not always welcome on the more affluent markets of the West – and to make the matters worse, the East German entity of Zeiss lost the rights to the Contax name in 1956. After considering multiple options (including apparently the “Pentax” name), the East Germans rebranded their cameras “Pentacon” (a portmanteau for Pentaprism and Contax) and the Contax S line of SLRs was abandonned.

Why is a pentaprism so important, that Zeiss and (later) Asahi changed the name of their cameras to include “Penta”?

Composing a picture on a piece of ground glass located behind the lens is nothing new (plate cameras have been following that model forever), but the image is reversed top-bottom and left-right, which makes the composing process very slow and totally unsuitable to candid photography.

If a mirror inclined at 45 degrees is placed behind the lens, and the image projected on a piece of ground glass, it is not reversed top/bottom anymore, but is still reversed left/right. The photographers has to shoot from waist level, after having used a magnifying glass for focusing. It’s workable, but not the best formula for action shots, journalism or simply spontaneous family photographs.

Nikon F3 with its HP Viewfinder

Nikon F3 with the viewfinder removed

the (huge) prism of the Nikon F3’s viewfinder

Nikon F3 with the pentaprism viewfinder removed: the image formed on the focusing screen is reversed laterally.

Left is right, right is left and of course the Coke and Powerade labels are also reversed

The pentaprism addresses all those issues – and as we all know from experience with SLRs, the image is fully redressed, focusing is easy, and eye-level composition makes action photography intuitive even for beginners.

Nikon F3 – The view of the same scene from the eye-level pentaprism viewfinder

Asahi Optical Co

Asahi started manufacturing lenses in Japan in 1919, and launched the first Japanese 35mm single lens reflex camera – the Asahiflex – in 1952. It was inspired by the pre-war German Praktiflex, but brought some improvements: it had two finders: a waist level through the lens viewfinder (for focusing) and a smaller eye level optical viewfinder to be used when taking candid snapshots.

In two critical areas, the Asahiflex was not as advanced as the Contax S: it did not have a pentaprism viewfinder, and it used a narrower 37mm screw mount.

Asahi’s first major innovation came two years later with the introduction of the instant return mirror on the Asahiflex IIb (1954). The IIb was without equivalent for a while, but the step forward it represented was nothing compared to Asahi’s next giant leap, with the “Pentax” of 1957. The first (mass produced) Japanese camera with a pentaprism, it combined for the first time in a compact, elegant and well made camera the instant return mirror, the film advance lever, easy film loading with a hinged back, and the 42mm screw mount.

img_asahi_pentax — The original Asahi Pentax camera from 1957 (source: official Pentax Web site).

The Pentax line of cameras sold by the millions and became the model that all other manufacturers would copy in the subsequent years. The Pentax name became so well known that the Asahi Optical Co. decided to sell all its products (including its line of medical equipment) under the name Pentax, before it finally changed its own name to Pentax Corporation in 2002.

Spotmatic_NikFM-15 — Pentax Spotmatic F from 1973 (left) and Nikon FM from 1977 (right). More than 15 years after its launch, the design of the “original” Pentax was still the model that all camera manufacturers were following

It is widely assumed that “Pentax” is also a portmanteau for Pentaprism and Contax. According to Wikipedia, the name was purchased by Asahi from the East German Zeiss company just before the launch of the original Pentax SLR in 1957.

pentax ap_top_plate — Asahi Pentax – the top plate of the original model (1957) – source: eBay

cameras--6630 — The Pentax Spotmatic F on 1973 – still true to the model defined by the “original” Pentax of 1957

Today, the single lens reflex formula is on its last breath – superseded by mirrorless cameras where the pentaprism has been replaced with a high resolution LCD – the Contax brand is dormant, and Pentax, as a subsidiary of Ricoh, is in life support with a line of three rather old dSLRs and no plan to launch a mirrorless system.

Sic transit…

More about

By far the most comprehensive source about Pentax cameras, as well as early SLRs of all makes: Pentax-slr.com

Asahi Optical Historical Club

The official corporate history of Pentax (the Ricoh-imaging-co Web site)

The Asahi Pentax original (AP) from 1957 – CameraQuest

From a Pentax to another Pentax…