Thursday, April 09, 2020

The Praktica LB2

Low Budget, even for a Praktica



The Praktica line of 35mm SLR cameras was manufactured by  Kamera-Werkstatten (K-W), which became part of the VEB Pentacon group in 1964 and were produced to about 1990. Yes, they were made on the other side of the Iron Curtain, in Dresden, East Germany.  My first brush with a Praktica was around 2001, when I  bought a Praktica TL on eBay.  I had it for a few years, and enjoyed its simplicity and the fact that it used M-42 screw-mount lenses.    My next Praktica, in 2009,  was an early model, the FX-3, which was made in the late 1950s.


By the mid-1970s, SLRs were extremely popular, and with the offerings of Pentax, Canon, Minolta, Nikon, and Olympus (and many smaller brands), there was much to choose from in an SLR system.  One thing all these cameras had in common was TTL metering.  The Praktica LTL (1970-75) did have TTL stop-down metering, and I find it interesting that the LB (1972-75) and LB2 (1976-77) utilized an external Selenium meter that was uncoupled.   The price point for the LBs must have been significantly lower, and perhaps aimed at beginners.  I just don't see how such a camera would have competed against Japanese-made SLRs at the time outside of the Communist Bloc.    I tried searching for 1970s Praktica SLR prices in US magazines, and the closest I could come was a 1981 price for a Praktica LTL3 (which did have TTL metering) with a 50mm lens for $107 at Cambridge Camera.   At that time, a Nikon FE body with a 50mm 1.8 lens was $310.  A Canon AE-1 with 50mm lens was $370.  Obviously, the Praktica was much cheaper, but also lacked any automation.


So, what's one to make of the Praktica LB2?  The basic features of the camera are:

  • Vertical metal-bladed shutter with B, 1- 1/1000 sec shutter speeds
  • ISO 6 - 1600 settings for meter
  • external Selenium-celled, uncouple meter with match needle window on top deck
  • ISO flash shoe on prism
  • 1/125 sec flash sync
  • 1/30 sec sync for flashbulb
  • front mounted shutter release
  • tripod socket
  • accepts M-42 screw mount lenses







I loaded up the LB2 with some Svema FN64 (from the FPP store) and took the camera along on several outings.  The front-mounted shutter release didn't take long to get used to, as it's actually very comfortably placed, and my index finger falls naturally on it.    The shutter has a nice chunk sound when it fires, and apart from the Selenium meter, it reminds me a bit of a Minolta SRT 102.  I used several lenses, the favorite being the Starblitz 28mm f/2.8.    I tried to use the metering of the camera as much as I could, though I may have just used sunny-16 a few times.  One disadvantage of that non-TTL meter is that filter factors need to be considered when using any filter, rather than having the meter compensate for them.

In the end, while the LB2 is an odd-duck SLR, it does pretty well for such a low-budget camera.  In general, the Praktica SLRs are a step up from the Russian-made Zenits, and will deliver good results.  The prices on eBay have really gone up for the Prakticas.  In their heyday, they were never common cameras in the US, and some were rebranded by Hanimex and others for the UK market and elsewhere outside the Iron Curtain.  It was only after the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany that the Dresden-made SLRs really became commonly available, and by then, M-42 mount SLRs (of which there are many brands from Japan, Germany, and the Ukraine and Russia) just were not popular, so they did not sell for much in the used market.  Now that film cameras have become more popular, the prices are 2-5 times what I would have paid 10 years ago. You certainly can buy a 1970s-80s Praktica SLR and a bunch of M-42 mount lenses and have a lot of fun shooting.  The vertical metal-bladed shutters are reliable, in my opinion, better than the cloth-based horizontal shutters that are found in the Pentax Spotmatics.

Photo Results

I developed the Svema FN64 in the FPP D-96 for 8.5 min at 20°C.














5 comments:

milldave said...

Prakticas had an immense effect on popular photography in Western Europe, particularly the UK, in the 70s and 80s, simply because of cost and availability.
They were ubiquitous, reliable and very cost-effective.
Look through the pages of "Amateur Photographer" magazines of the period and there are many, many adverts for Prakticas.
Me, I lusted after a Spotmatic F, but that didn't materialize;I received my first ever SLR in 1975, as an 18th birthday present from my father.
It was a Minolta SRT-303 (the original, with the mirror lock-up and black to boot!), the cost was £149.95, then about US $350-360 in exchange rate.
A basic Praktica was less than half of the Minolta price.
Prakticas were well-made, due to their need to earn precious "foreign exchange" for the DDR.
If one was really strapped for cash, the Zenit-E was the choice for SLR, available through a photographic retailer named Dixons, who supplied the budget end of the market.
I never owned a Zenit or Praktica, as they used M42 screw-mount lenses and my uncle, who at the time was my photography mentor, owned a bayonet-lensed Petri SLR (breech-lock fitting, a la early Canon FD).
I thought bayonet mounts were the way to go.
With my camera collecting, I have never owned a camera from behind the old Iron Curtain, which says something, perhaps, for my view of the old Communist countries - their goods were always viewed as "second class", which was FAR from the truth in the case of the DDR.
I have now somewhere in the region of 220 film cameras of all sorts, sizes and types, from plate to viewfinder/rangefinder/SLR/TLR/large-format.
But nothing from East of the Elbe, unless it is pre-1939.
With the Press folks, the cameras never caught on, either; hardly surprising in the face of Nikon/Canon/Pentax/Minolta - the Prakticas just weren't "sexy" enough.
Thanks for the article; revived some old and good memories.
Regards,
David

Hans-3.14 said...

What is going on with blogspot. Some of your photoes (The Praktica LB2) are censored. I have the sam eproblem.

mfophotos said...

That was odd! I removed the "deleted" photos and replaced them. Maybe it's some problem with blogger. Thanks for alerting me!
Mark

beanie said...

Do you know where i can buy film for the LB2 praktica?

mfophotos said...

beanie -- 35mm film is available just about anywhere - Walgreens, CVS have Fuji or Kodak color films, and of course, there are many online places to purchase from, even Amazon. Google is your friend.