Praktica Camera

I have been given a Praktica camera the model is B100 electronic I also have some lens[zoom] also a cobra auto 210 looks like a flash of some kind with it as well is it worth anything or can I get it valued what do you think many thanks

 

There's one on Ebay at present standing at �£19.50 - auction ends in an hour - I doubt if the final bid will be much more. There's not much of a market now for 35mm film SLRs.

 

The Praktica was always described as the poor man's Pentax. And as the Pentax was mid-market then the Praktica was a bit down market. If you want to play with an analogue camera for fun Nathan then it is OK for 'Thank you' but film and prints are very expensive compared with 'do it yourself' digital. But you won't get much for it I am afraid.

 

Many thanks Dave and John at least I know, it was only given to me as they are moving house and a lot of stuff had to go

 

I don't think Praktica SLR cameras have much value now, they were East German made and always looked on as a cheap sub for the better Japanese models. They had Zeiss Jena lens which was a selling point along with the price. They stopped making them in 1990.

 

I have two Praktica SLR's (non-electronic) these were the type favoured by press photographers at one time as they were the most robust camera on the market.

 

Those were the days. Hand held exposure meters ( I'd a Weston Master V latterly) or a good 'guestimate' for exposure'.

My first SLR was an Exacta VX1000 it had interchangeable fresnel screens(spot/matte/split image), lots of add-ons (if you could afford them!) and was marketed as the first 'system camera' and was built like a tank. I'd a Mamiya C330 for a couple of years thanks to a friend who was a press photographer and didn't need his 'spare' camera. Then picked up a small Pentax for a fiver at a jumble sale. It was brilliant but I only had the 50mm lens. My final SLR was an Olympus OM10 - picked it up 'not working' at a car boot sale about 10 years ago. I fitted a fresh battery and Bingo! Selling it and most of the contents of my darkroom have funded my move into digital.
I used to buy my film in bulk as end rolls of movie stock and wind my own cassettes. Binned my last unused roll of it last year during a shed clear out.
Photography is certainly a very much less expensive hobby these days.

 

I used to wind my own cassettes as well, especially when I used an Agfa Karat (No spool in the 12 exposure cassette). I used to 'contact print' slides on positive film stock. The emulsion was faster than most paper emulsions, so I made an exposure box with a 2.5 volt bulb and bell-push. It worked very well.

My projector (an Argus 300w) blew a lamp within seven hours from new, not very happy with this I fitted a "Brimistor" resistor into the lamp circuit and never had to replace another lamp.