Anybody used one of these

Sir SR

Sir SR

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A friend went to see her mum and she was having a clear out. This camera was about to be disposed off but given my recent love for film, I was offered it first!!

Practika MTL 3

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I used to own one of those many moons ago :) (the praktica) - it was pinched from the back of my car when I was fishing one day :( I think I may still have an old haminex flash too ....
 
what is the view like through the finder?
 
Think I used my Dad's praktica that he bought new in the 1970s. Was years ago though.
 
Sir SR said:
What was it like?
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Built like a tank in some ways, metering was pants though from what I remember, some odd way of doing it (don't recall the details, a needle or something ...). Would still work without a battery and the 50mm lens was ok. Never used it with flash though. Worked fine, I tended to use it for fishing pics with kodak or fuji asa400 in.
 
Bloody huge great things, weigh a ton and I don't like them at all. I think they are fairly capable in some ways but they are built to a price point, if you know what I mean.
 
Made a great door stop :)
I did like the release angle though on mine and if I recall the split prism focusing was diagonal so you didnt need a vertical/horizontal line to set focus correctly.
Typical 70's East European stuff, out of date, crude but worked ok if you were too demanding. The Pentacon 135 f2.8 lens was a cracker though. I had a later version camera too which had electronics and stuff that sent data to the lens, dont recall if it was screw mount though, think it was. M42 on the original camera, so loads of lens fitted at the time.
Matt
 
From what I've read and heard they are pretty basic but built like a tank and capable of decent results if you're careful. I know/ know of a few people who have fond memories of these because their parents and grandparents used them when they were kids. They often enjoy using them because of that nostalgia.

If it's a freebie or cheap enough why not give it a go and have a bit of fun with it? You could always chuck it in the car or a bag so it's to hand and you aren't having to risk anything valuable then.
 
Yeah I've used a few from MTl3, 5 and similar TL5b...they are usually attached to the lenses I want. What can I say about them? well they are not a "must have" camera, and they just take pictures...also if going somewhere that's dodgy (thieving) or likely to ruin a camera then they are the ones to use.;)
 
I've used an MTL5. As the others say, if it doesn't work as a camera you can bang nails in with it, but having said that, it's a perfectly capable light-tight box, and the lens is decent, and now you have a body you can attach other M42 lenses to, should you find some knocking around cheap. Also, I have no idea why more cameras didn't position the shutter release button as it does, because I found it far more comfortable there than on the top.
 
I had one for a while, it "sh!t a brick" every now and again and ripped its way through the sprocket holes when you wound on - so you'd take 36 frames and maybe 5 would come out followed by a torn and very dark negative, then a whole load of unexposed frames.

It met it's demise while climbing in the alps, where it fell off a bivi ledge on the Aig Du Midi, first bounce was onto the rocks about 1000ft below, second one probaby twice that again, then splat into a Glacier I reckon. Wouldn't be surprised in 100 years time when all the Ice has melted that it's sat there in an alpine meadow, pretty much intact.

I was more upset at losing half the roll of shots from the day before's climb than I was from the loss of the camera.
 
abdoujaparov said:
I've used an MTL5. As the others say, if it doesn't work as a camera you can bang nails in with it, but having said that, it's a perfectly capable light-tight box, and the lens is decent, and now you have a body you can attach other M42 lenses to, should you find some knocking around cheap. Also, I have no idea why more cameras didn't position the shutter release button as it does, because I found it far more comfortable there than on the top.
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Can you recommend any decent m42 lenses. Portrait work really is what I do.
 
Stop down metering iirc or am I getting muddled with something else

I had one that was an impulse buy ....... ran one roll of film through it, decided that I hated it, sat it on a shelf as an ornament for x amount of time then ended up giving it away
 
Sir SR said:
Can you recommend any decent m42 lenses. Portrait work really is what I do.
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Pentax lenses are VG, and Helios and CZJ 50mm Tessar, 35mm Flektagon, 135 Sonnar....so many I could go on.
 
As it's an eastern block camera why not pick up a Jupiter 9 85mm f2 for it? Making sure to get one in M42 mount rather than LTM. They have a good reputation and don't cost much. Flickr has a few groups dedicated to it if you want examples.
 
mdjchat said:
As it's an eastern block camera why not pick up a Jupiter 9 85mm f2 for it? Making sure to get one in M42 mount rather than LTM. They have a good reputation and don't cost much. Flickr has a few groups dedicated to it if you want examples.
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If you don't want to spend much money and you can get 2 Xs m42 multiplier, a recommended 50mm would do e.g Meyer 50mm or same Pentacon 50mm..they are f1.8, so even losing two stops because of the multiplier is doable for portraiture.
 
Pentaxforums is always a good place to look for reviews of lenses, provided they could in some way be adapted to Pentax cameras (which used the M42 screw mount in the early days). This page covers Pentax short telephoto lenses: https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/Pentax-Takumar-M42-Screwmount-Telephoto-Primes-c24.html . Or look here for third party lens reviews (look at the Zeiss and olfer lenses for M42 mounts; you can't adapt K mount lenses for M42, but you can go the other way round): https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/ .
 
I bought one last year for £25 in an antiques shop - I am sure you can get them cheaper but I was able to examine it and see that it was working. It's a perfectly capable camera and I like it.

I'm using mine with tamron adapatall lenses in 28mm, 35-70mm, and 135mm focal lengths, as well as 50mm and 29mm M42 lenses and a 58mm Helios lens.

Here's a sample shot, with a 50mm lens (the same model as shown at the top of the thread) and Ektar, home developed:

2016-5-29, Blagdon Hall, MTL3, Ektar, Fuji chems, Jobo, 12.jpg
 
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Although not long enough for a "true" portrait lens, it may be worth trying the Helios 44m 58mm lens which is famous for swirly backgrounds. The only example shot I have isn't a portrait but it gives some idea of the effect:


Emerging by Kevin Allan, on Flickr

The shot above was taken with an M42 adaptor on a Canon EOS300 camera on Poundland film.
 
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Kevin Allan said:
Although not long enough for a "true" portrait lens, it may be worth trying the Helios 44m 58mm lens which is famous for swirly backgrounds. The only example shot I have isn't a portrait but it gives some idea of the effect:


Emerging by Kevin Allan, on Flickr

The shot above was taken with an M42 adaptor on a Canon EOS300 camera on Poundland film.
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That looks lovely.....

Any good places to get one other than the bay?
 
mdjchat said:
As it's an eastern block camera why not pick up a Jupiter 9 85mm f2 for it? Making sure to get one in M42 mount rather than LTM. They have a good reputation and don't cost much. Flickr has a few groups dedicated to it if you want examples.
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This also sounds very interesting.

Again, other than the bay, where's good to get one?
 
I'm fairly sure that the Pentacon Auto 1.8/50 was a rename of the Meyer-Optik Görlitz Oreston 1.8/50 - a very decent lens in every way, especially if you prefer the "rounded" rendering of German lenses rather than the "wiry" Japanese style of Nikkors and Takumars. The other Pentacon branded lenses were also renames of the classic East German designs from Meyer-Optik and Zeiss-Jena, so worth looking out for.

These later Prakticas had a metal bladed shutter that, like the Copal Square shutter, was pretty close to indestructable in normal use. These later Prakticas also had finders which were particularly bright for the period and the focusing aids were generally effective.

All in all a decent piece of kit not to be confused with the earlier Praktica Nova series of cameras, which were never reliable though they were, in my opinion, quite pretty.
 
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Sir SR said:
This also sounds very interesting.

Again, other than the bay, where's good to get one?
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The most obvious places outside of eBay would be fedka or Oleg's Russian camera site. Nowhere near as cheap as eBay but you can be guaranteed of getting a good lens with no faults.
 
Sejanus Aelianus said:
I'm fairly sure that the Pentacon Auto 1.8/50 was a rename of the Meyer-Optik Görlitz Oreston 1.8/50
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Indeed it was, and I have 50, 135 and 200mm Zebras..but my argument has always been:- why buy a Pentacon/ Meyer/Helios/Tessa etc 50mm lens when you can picked up a superior Zuiko 50mm or Canon 50mm just as cheap. Is it wise to buy a lens to suit an old basic camera as e.g. any modern Canon will have Canon lenses and you can have a M42 adapter to use screw lenses. Anyone can only say what they do as ideas for others and for me am happy with one of the most advance M42 cameras and m42 adapters for Canons, Minoltas, Contax etc
 
I had one.. called it the bad penny! I spent ten years trying to give it away, but it just kept coming back!
ISTR I acquired t in a lucky dip box of M42 stuff. t was, I suppose a reasonably useful camera. Coment about tendency to rip film, resonates though! I recall it happening a couple of times when I gave it to my little bother; I put it down to his ham-fistedness and cheap bulk loaded croaton B&W, but reverse take up on the take up spindle, was probably not the best.
I dontt recall it being particularly heavy, and I used OM10's at the time. It was certainly less brick-like then the Zenit I have kept, and its build did seem rather tiny and imprecice compared to that, the 10, o my loverly Sigma MK1.
Man fripe with it was the curiouse jadlng, with shtter release on the frnt near the lens, and the 'trigger' meter switch.. it wasn't a camera that felt natural to use, or inclined me to make it so.
Lens-wise, I had a couple of M42 zooms that came with it, and left with it when it eventually went! They were rather chap and nasty, M42 having fallen out of favour and the preserve of stak-em-high-sell-em-cheap catalogues by the time any-on was offering M42 zooms, and I cant even recall what they were.
Of the M42 stuff to have 'stuck', I have a pentagon 29 that's quite nice, a Ziess 50, a Helios 135, and a Prinz Galaxy 300, with a couple of converters; mostly used on my Sigma, they are the ones that I chose to keep based on condition, handling and performance, based on buyng lucky-dp boxes whe I went into film, in the days before google!
There's a fair few 135 portrait lenses about, most I think Sigma made copies of the Pentax, and quite a few of them are pretty good... but, with old bargain bucket kit like this, you ar probably down to lucky dip where whether something 'works' is more important than the name on the front and what the lab-rats might have said about it when new.... Have fun! (But I wouldn't invest much until I was sure I could live with that curouse handling!)
 
abdoujaparov said:
I've used an MTL5. As the others say, if it doesn't work as a camera you can bang nails in with it, but having said that, it's a perfectly capable light-tight box, and the lens is decent, and now you have a body you can attach other M42 lenses to, should you find some knocking around cheap. Also, I have no idea why more cameras didn't position the shutter release button as it does, because I found it far more comfortable there than on the top.
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Well there must be a reason why most of us don't use the MT3 etc family ;) Actually for the OPs portrait use it might be OK esp if using flash as the sync speed is a VG 1/125 (well it says about) (y) many more modern cameras are 1/60 to 1/90 (yep inc the T70 :eek:)..but something doesn't sound right in buying an expensive lens just for that camera, although as an investment a VG m42 lens can be used on other cameras and digi.
 
excalibur2 said:
Well there must be a reason why most of us don't use the MT3 etc family ;) Actually for the OPs portrait use it might be OK esp if using flash as the sync speed is a VG 1/125 (well it says about) (y) many more modern cameras are 1/60 to 1/90 (yep inc the T70 :eek:)..but something doesn't sound right in buying an expensive lens just for that camera, although as an investment a VG m42 lens can be used on other cameras and digi.
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I think that is probably nail on head.

I'll save the expensive lenses for when I'm allowed to get the Voigtlander/Leica!!

I've probably got enough to be doing portraits at the mo.

Any idea as to what flash triggers can be used/is there a PC port?
 
Sir SR said:
Perfect. There is a flash socket!!
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.....as you probably know for portraiture you can use master and slave flash guns with a fairly cheap slave unit that fires the secondary after the main flashgun fires..plenty of old flashguns going cheap and no worries about trigger voltage that might fry modern cameras.
 
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