[rollei_list] Re: OT: Communist cameras
- From: Nick Roberts <nickbroberts@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 10:59:39 +0100 (BST)
Well - the post-war Pentacon combine was an
amalgamation of the East German remains of Zeiss Ikon
and KW, so to that extent there was a Zeiss
involvement.
Praktica cameras vary considerably in quality - the
earlier ones are certainly on a par with the
competition, the later screw-mount ones somewhat
agricultural but pretty reliable, and the electronic
ones actually rather nice, but with a very poor
reputation for failure. I rather like some of them.
The Praktina range were excellent, and the Pentacon
Super a complete white elephant, but a glorious one in
many ways.
Then there's the Contax S, the precursor to most 35mm
SLRs in many ways. And the Werras - genuinely made by
Zeiss in East Germany - are delightful. And I use my
Pentacon 6TL a lot, although it's not as well-made as
it should be, but it serves as a platform for the very
decent Carl Zeiss Jena lenses. Although admittedly not
as well as the Exacta 66 or the Arax.
As to Soviet cameras, well early ones are generally of
very high quality. A friend of mine opines that
earlier Kiev rangefinders are better made than pre-war
Contaxes; of that I am not sure, but I can say
honestly that my Kiev 4 is utterly reliable and a
decent camera, but not as nice as my Contax IIIa. I
would say the same for my FED 2 against the Leica IIf.
And my Kiev 10 and 15 35mm SLRs are at least
interesting machines, and fully functional, if not the
most user-friendly of items. The 10 has a very
particular ugly beauty!
Yes, it's certainly true that there were huge quality
control problems in particular with the Soviet
cameras, but to generalise from that that all
Communist cameras are rubbish is rampant
oversimplification.
Nick
___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
---
Rollei List
- Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe'
in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with
'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Online, searchable archives are available at
//www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list
Other related posts:
- » [rollei_list] Re: OT: Communist cameras
