Praktica B200. The best SLR to come out of the German Democratic Republic?
- Kamera Ostalgie
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
Lets go back to 1979, Two Tone records were all the rage, Ska music was well and truly in. To be cool, you wore Spencer's trousers, white socks and ox blood loafers, topped off with a green ex army Parka and rode a Lambretta GP or a Vespa Rally 200. What camera did you buy, only one thing for it, a Praktica B200 of course!
The Praktica B200 was all the rage from Christmas 1979 to Christmas 1982, it was the most pushed Praktica in the U.K. ever. Adverts in A.P. and all the other camera magazines, not just little ones, but large full page adverts in full colour, sometimes over two or more pages, and if you looked in the big photographic stores windows in the High Street, you would think no other SLR existed, the Praktica B200 was all the rage!
All the hype worked on me, I bought one, with all the collective money from my 21st Birthday and my savings! But to be fair, it was such a well speced camera for the money, if there had not been all that hype I would still have bought it. The price was much lower than anything similar coming out of Japan and I was very pro British and pro European at the time and wanted a European camera, not one from Japan! So the Praktica B200 it was! No contest!
By January of 1982, Dixons had started heavily discounting them, making them even better value, so off I trotted to Dixons in the arcade in Keighley, the nearest store to me and bought a brand new camera ! The first new camera I ever bought. It was still expensive though, to a lad of 21 who was earning £22 a week !
So that was it, one Praktica B200 purchased! I used it a lot over the next few years until I got into using vintage cameras even more. How did I find it? Well I liked it a lot, a very nice clear viewfinder with the diagonal split image, meant focussing was much easier than the older Prakticas and Exaktas, which were my normal cameras, I did not have to carry a separate light metre and the exposures were very good, even with colour slides. I had a bayonet to m42 screw adaptor so I could still use older lenses if needed, I doubled up the straps, one on the case one on the camera body, just in case, as it spent most of its time around my neck and tucked under my Parka as I was out and about on my scooter.
The only down side with the B200 was it ate batteries for breakfast ! God it went through some batteries, despite locking the shutter to avoid the case pressing down on the shutter button and activating the meter. If I was not using it for a while, the battery was removed. All this helped but it was still heavy on battery use. Apart from that, this camera was fantastic. I later acquired a B100 as a second camera, I liked them so much.
So coming across it again the other week spurred me on to buy a new battery for it and get another of my current go to films the Agfa APX 100 and try it out, which hopefully I can do before the blog is cut off on September 17th! It will be interesting to see if it still performs well and I still like using it.
It will also be of interest to see how the battery performs ! It is a Poundmax 4AG13/4LR44, it's made in China, so I'm not expecting a great deal, but we will see. I did manage to track down a Varta V28PX / 4LR44 which I think were the original battery specified, but the cost would have been horrendous, I could buy another B200 for less! So lets give it a go and see how long it lasts.
Right, lets have a look around the B200, reasonably conventional controls for its time, starting with a good range of shutter speeds, the slow speeds are marked in red, B, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 15th of a second, fast speeds, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, 1000, are marked in white, if you are feeling lazy you also have automatic which is marked in green. The mark to set your speeds against is the red line on the side of the prism. The shutter can be locked by moving the black ring below the shutter button. The middle of the shutter button is threaded for use of a cable release. The film counter is automatic and very easy to read.
A chrome hot shoe sits on top of the prism. I think if my memory is correct the flash was 1/90th of a second.
The film speed control ring is in ASA and DIN and needs setting correctly for the metering system. You can also under or over expose by one or two stops using this ring using the white dot as a marker. This can be locked and unlocked using the small silver button. The black button is for you to check the battery, and a memory control, which I never ever used!
The red dot lever releases the bayonet for lens changing while the hockey stick shaped lever with the white vertical stripe controls the self timer. Above the self timer is a depth of field preview lever. Now I did not use this much when the camera was new, as I found the self timer lever directly below it fowled my shutter finger as it tried to push or slide the lever upwards. Now this might have been just me that was clumsy, but I still find it difficult now, in fact it feels worse after forty odd years! Like I say I struggle with it, but it is probably just me?
The back is again very conventional, film cassette in the chamber on the left, leader pulled to the right to engage with film sprocket and the wind on or take up spool.
In the middle sits the battery compartment with its lockable lid. Below that the tripod screw. The little button in the recessed horse shoe is the re-wind button.
The odd looking circle to the left and slightly above the re-wind button is the motor drive lock! Yes, these cameras had provision for a motor wind. The two little circles next to each other are the motor wind contacts, the circle below is the motor wind catch. I found use of the right thumb quite adequate and much cheaper!
Pentacon, made in the German Democratic Republic, complete with the Pentacon or Ernemann tower if you like, plus the Ist quality mark. You don't get this quality mark on all of the B200's ! This of course was made defore the fall of the wall, and the GDR was anything but democratic! Having said that, today the old East Germany is far nicer than the more liberal old West for some reason. More German, more patriotic and the people are much nicer and more down to earth, apart from one city, Berlin, which is a left wing liberal dump of a city. Apart from that give me the old GDR any day of the week.
So, that is my little look at the Praktica B200. However it is a rather biased view, as I like Prakticas and I love the old East Germany, and East German cameras of all ages, but don't let my very biased views put you off the B200, it is a very good camera, then and now if you get one in good condition.
I have my film, my new battery and if I get chance before the Blog closes in a couple of weeks I will do another post showing my results all being well. Until then, take care.
Phil
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