4 September 2016

Praktica MTL-3 - Mint

apr 28, 2005; 09:37 a.m.
Eat your hearts out, Practicaphobes! I picked this one up for a song (Ten Pounds - about $17.00 on a good day) with a 50/2.8 CZJ Tessar, a 35/2.5 CZJ Flektogon and a 135/2.8 CZJ Pentacon Auto. It still has the factory "seal" over the pressure plate - I can find no evidence of a film ever having been put through it! It truly is "Mint" condition. Sorry - no pictures from it to post - I'm very reluctant to remove that seal....



Believe it or not it was in the used cameras display case of a local digital camera store, staffed by "digitechs" who knew not what it's value was, and surrounded by used P&S stuff and a few digicams. Price was marked at Ten Pounds, and the lenses were "thrown in" because "we'll never sell them without a camera to go with".... Note, there are now "digital camera stores" as opposed to "photographic stores" where film is an anachronism.

Praktica cameras were manufactured by Pentacon in Dresden in eastern Germany, formerly within the GDR (prior to German reunification in 1990). Pentacon is the modern-day successor to Dresden camera firms such as Zeiss Ikon.  This MTL-5 was made in 1983.  The vertical, metal-curtained focal plane shutter runs from 1s to 1/1000s +B, with a self-timer giving a delay of about 7 seconds. The vertical blades allow X-flash sync up to 1/125s.
The lans mount is M42 screw mount.

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