The original Praktica accessary bracket!

I have managed to in a very round about way, get my hands on one of these ! See image below! Let me expand on the phrase 'round about way' if I may. Now these original accessary brackets are quite expensive if you buy them individually. They currently range from about £25-£35 pounds in the U.K. which to me is a little overpriced for what they are.

However my thinking was, that one would be very useful to sit a little light meter on for the earlier Prakticas with no built in meter, saves you carrying one around, or often in my case forgetting to take one out with you altogether.

So with this idea in the back in my head, I was looking on E-bay as you do at Prakticas when I spotted this.........

A Praktica PL Nova I body with the much wanted bracket already attached, not much interest was being shown in it so I watched it, just in case. My thinking was that as the bracket fits the Praktica IV, IVF, IVB, VF, etc as well as all the early Nova's, then it would be very useful and only one bracket would be needed. The trouble was I did not really need another body with no lens.

In the end there was only one person daft enough to place a bid me, so for £11.11 I had got myself the accessory bracket plus a Praktica body as well. When the package arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the body itself, the shutter looked to be working at all speeds, it cleaned up okay, so it just might be worth putting a film in it and giving it a try. I just need a lens!

So this is what I wanted to do, sit a small light meter above the camera !

Okay, so it's not what would have been on it originally, but someone once told me that the Russians based this Helios lens on the German Zeiss Biotar, so its near enough for me, if that is true of course. It is a Helios -44-2 58mm f2 with the number 7765801 so made in 1977 I think. The lens was in my going on Ebay box, but for now it will reside on the Nova I

Well, maybe the Praktica shoe is not mint and boxed like this example shown on my favourite Praktica website http://www.praktica-collector.de but it is in good condition and it will do the job! If you have not looked on the Praktica collector site, then have a look, lots of information and it is a fantastic collection of Prakticas, that must have been a very interesting project gathering all those together.

So whilst we are on the subject lets have a further look at this example of the PL Nova I

This one is body number 546288

Looks pretty tidy from above, though there is a screw missing from the back of the top plate.

The film track is a little corroded, but not too bad! Needs a good dust out in the back, a bit of dust on the shutter blinds, but that looks to be about it!

Just for fun I tried an old Prinz flash gun of roughly the same period on the shoe, bit tight but it fits. The bracket looks a bit high on the Nova, I suppose this is because it was originally designed for the IV and had to accommodate its taller prism body?

My only problem now will be getting time to try it out with film ! Oh well ! Not a bad problem to have!

I hope you enjoyed these ramblings.

Take care.

Philip