Prakticar Electric Lens

tempra · Oct 11, 2006

amongst the things I bought last week is a Prakticar Electric f2.8 28mm lens, it has glass to die for and I thought i'd look it up om the net, however most of the search results I'm getting are for pentacon lenses, and pictures show they are prakticar pentacons or pentacon electrics.

Has anyone come across this lens before?

The part that screws into the camera (m42) actually unscrews from the main lens body and it has a slider thing on it that I can't see what purpose this has, the lens is made in japan, and I know Praktica is East German.

Anyone any clues?

Signed: clueless, Oxford

Mitica100 · Oct 11, 2006

Prakticars were made in both East Germany (rare) and Japan. The 28/2.8 is a great lens, despite its low price. One interesting fact, the East german Prakticars were 29mm, not 28mm.

Unfortunately, I don't know much else about this lens than you do... Anyone else?

Don Simon · Oct 11, 2006

Hmm, just going by other m42 lenses, could the slider thing be the switch that chooses either manual or automatic aperture selection? Try closing down the aperture a bit, then turn the slider and see if it opens and closes the aperture. Or of course it could be something completely different - I too know nothing about this specific lens :scratch:

Mitica100 · Oct 11, 2006

Z... Can you post a pic. of the lens with that slider thingie? I'm curious now...

darin3200 · Oct 11, 2006

Well the old m42's had a slider on the barrel of the lens that you could set it to manual or auto aperature. It was just like a little focusing ring near the screw mount but didn't go all the way around. The m42's have a little pin coming out the end which ends up near the base. When you trip the shutter a little metal plate below and in front of the mirror pushes in the pin and it stops the lens down.

I've got a prakticar 28mm f/2.8 but it's a b-bayonnet

Don Simon · Oct 11, 2006

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Edit: Second time I've been beaten to a post today... I really must learn to type faster

I can't seem to find any pics of this Prakticar on the internet so I'm not sure if what I'm thinking of is the same as the 'slider' on that lens, but here's some photos of the auto/manual aperture switch...

Btw neither of those photos are mine, I just grabbed some off the web for convenience, hope that's ok and no-one gets sued

. Anyway I've highlighted the switch on both. This part tends to vary in design but some version of it can be found on many m42 lenses - though there are exceptions, like preset lenses obviously but also like Fuji m42 lenses which only allow the camera to stop down and therefore have no switch enabling you to do it. Anyhoo do those switches seem similar to the slider on the Prakticar?

tempra · Oct 12, 2006

Hmmm, I'll post a picture up tonight - got to go to work for the moment, but it's not like those Zaphod.

tempra · Oct 12, 2006

OK, finally took some shots of the lens!

Here are the markings on it

Side view and you can see the slider at the back of the lens

Close up of the slider

And the actual lens separates into two!

Any ideas???

Oh and a little off topic, but a guy at work gave me this little beauty today with a 75-300 lens! - he's going to try and find the original lens that it came with, what a day!

Mitica100 · Oct 12, 2006

Hmm... It looks like a 28mm lens that has an adapter of sorts, or a close up ring? Is there any way you can post a picture of the 'adapter', front and back (full ring in view)?

tempra · Oct 12, 2006

these do?

santino · Oct 13, 2006

maybe without the adapter it's for rangefinders (uncoupled of course)

is it m42 too?

tempra · Oct 13, 2006

santino said:
maybe without the adapter it's for rangefinders (uncoupled of course)
is it m42 too?

Yes it's M42 on both, itwon't screw in without the adaptor as it hits the mirror on the SLR - but yeah I suppose it could be for non SLR cameras with the depth.