It’s typically stated that the Nikon F was the primary “system” digicam. However, that’s not fairly true.
It began with a visionary designer, Siegfried Böhm, who dreamed of a digicam extra superior than something being made in 1948. He developed a brand new shutter with a single, non-rotating dial for each high and low speeds. This satisfied his bosses at Kamera-Werkstätten, in Dresden, East Germany, to approve growth of what would change into the Praktina FX.
With a crew of 30, his Praktina was shortly developed and proven on the 1952 Photokina commerce present in Cologne, Germany, and went on sale in early 1953.
The Praktina FX had quite a few world-firsts, together with interchangeable viewfinders, interchangeable focusing screens, the breech-lock, fast change lens mount (just like the later Canon FL/FD breech-lock system), interchangeable digicam backs, in addition to motor drive functionality through a coupling on the underside of the digicam.
Each spring-driven motors (20 photographs on a wind) and electrical motors (with distant management) have been provided. There was even a particular again that held 17 meters of movie, permitting for 450 exposures!
There have been a number of viewfinder choices, together with a pentaprism, each common and magnifying waist-level finders, a bellows for close-ups, stereo pictures adapters and an in depth array of lenses from 35 to 500mm, made by Zeiss, Meyer Optic, Schacht, Schneider, Steinheil and others.
In all of those, the Praktina beat the significantly better identified Nikon F by a full 6 years – and Canon’s first “system digicam”, the F1, by 17 years! And a lot of the Praktina’s improvements would change into commonplace options on later skilled cameras.
Kamera-Werkstätten additionally made the Praktica cameras. The 2 are sometimes confused, with only one letter totally different of their names, however make no mistake – they’re two very totally different cameras! The Prakticas have been mass-produced, consumer-level choices, whereas the Praktinas have been solidly made, properly completed cameras for professionals.
Within the March 1957 difficulty of Trendy Images, Herbert Keppler stated that the Praktina was “fairly suited to skilled work and rugged sufficient to resist a lot abuse”.
Praktinas got here with both a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 Tessar for $239.50 or the sooner 50mm f/2 Biotar for $297.50 – the tough equivalents of $2,197 / £1,620 and $2,729 / £2,030 immediately.
The Praktina FX was adopted by an improved Praktina IIA in 1958, however manufacturing of all fashions resulted in Could 1960 – when rising manufacturing prices of the complicated digicam and extra competitors from Japanese cameras, notably the Nikon F, spelled the top.
Discover out extra about pictures’s previous in David Younger’s e book, A Transient Historical past of Images.
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