Forgotten classics
Manual-focus 35mm SLRs might have reached their peak in the 1980s, but they had been around since 1936 when Ihagee produced the Kine Exakta, the first 35mm SLR. Here are three classics that are still very usable despite being largely forgotten today.
Praktina IIa (1958)
By today’s standards, this is a well-made but unremarkable German SLR, manually operated with a 1-1/1,000sec focal plane shutter, knob film wind and unusual for having an extra direct vision viewfinder beside the reflex finder. It is, however, the lenses and accessories that make it special. Lenses from 24mm to 1,000mm were made by the likes of Carl Zeiss, Meyer-Optik, Angenieux, Isco, Kilfitt, Schneider and Steinheil, all of which fit to the body via a breach lock mount. Accessories include four interchangeable viewfinders, replaceable focusing screens, clockwork and electric motor drives, a lever wind that fits to the base to replace the top-mounted wind knob and a huge film back for 17 metres of film to shoot 450 exposures. For close-up photography, there are manual and automatically coupled extension rings and a range of extension bellows. And all this a year before the launch of the Nikon F, more usually thought of as the first 35mm system SLR.
Zeiss Ikon Contarex (1960)
Nicknamed the Bullseye or Cyclops because of its large, round selenium cell meter above the lens, this is a big, heavy, brute of a camera – but what quality. An aperture scale is inset into a curved window above the meter, with f-stops controlled by a thumb wheel beside the lens. Shutter speeds of 1-1/1,000sec are set on a ring around the film advance lever. As each is adjusted, match-needle metering shows the correct exposure with indicators in the viewfinder and in a top plate window. A split-image rangefinder aids focusing and bayonet-mount interchangeable lenses carry prestigious names like Planar, Distagon, Sonnar and Tessar.
Topcon RE Super (1963)
Time was when Topcon was a name up there with the best of 35mm cameras, and the company’s RE Super was the world’s first SLR with through-thelens metering. The system works by a specially adapted reflex mirror with a pattern of transparent lines etched into it, allowing some light to pass through the mirror to a CdS meter cell at the rear. As apertures and shutter speeds are adjusted, match-needle metering indicates correct exposure in the viewfinder and in a top plate window. Accessories include eye-level and waist-level viewfinders, interchangeable focusing screens, extension tubes, bellows, slide copying and microscope attachments, electric motor drive and a wide range of bayonet-fit lenses in Exakta-style mounts.