It is usually mentioned that the Nikon F was the primary “system” digital camera. But, that’s not fairly true.
It all began with a visionary designer, Siegfried Böhm, who dreamed of a digital camera 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 turn into the Praktina FX.
With a team of 30, his Praktina was quickly developed and shown at the 1952 Photokina trade show in Cologne, Germany, and went on sale in early 1953.
The Praktina FX had numerous world-firsts, including interchangeable viewfinders, interchangeable focusing screens, the breech-lock, rapid change lens mount (similar to the later Canon FL/FD breech-lock system), interchangeable camera backs, as well as motor drive capability via a coupling on the bottom of the camera.
Both spring-driven motors (20 shots on a wind) and electric motors (with remote control) were offered. There was even a special back that held 17 meters of film, allowing for 450 exposures!
There were multiple viewfinder options, including a pentaprism, both regular and magnifying waist-level finders, a bellows for close-ups, stereo photography adapters and an extensive 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 camera”, the F1, by 17 years! And many of the Praktina’s improvements would turn into commonplace options on later skilled cameras.
Kamera-Werkstätten additionally made the Praktica cameras. The two 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 had been mass-produced, consumer-level choices, whereas the Praktinas had been solidly made, properly completed cameras for professionals.
In the March 1957 situation of Modern Photography, Herbert Keppler mentioned that the Praktina was “quite suited to professional work and rugged enough to withstand much abuse”.
Praktinas got here with both a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 Tessar for $239.50 or the quicker 50mm f/2 Biotar for $297.50 – the tough equivalents of $2,197 / £1,620 and $2,729 / £2,030 in the present day.
The Praktina FX was adopted by an improved Praktina IIA in 1958, however manufacturing of all fashions led to May 1960 – when rising manufacturing prices of the advanced digital camera and extra competitors from Japanese cameras, notably the Nikon F, spelled the top.
Find out extra about images’s previous in David Young’s guide, A Brief History of Photography.
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Take a look at the best film cameras you can buy today – or read other articles in David Young’s Classic Cameras series.