I’ve got a number of those and a few old Spotmatics in my loft. I used to be a camera technician. The BX20 is a much better camera than most people think.
Great video. On the 'prakticar' b series lenses, while you are right about the being fewer lens than other systems, there are some lovely options available for this camera, including some pretty decent (dare i say comparatively high end) options that were made by Carl Zeiss Jena. Definitely one to mostly stick to the prime lenses as most of the zooms are naff.
I 100% agree, even the non-CZJ primes were solid performers. Zooms were a bit hit-and-miss back then anyway, but the East German stuff was generally crap. I actually got given a CZJ 135mm f3.5 M42 for my MTL3 recently, so need to put that through its paces.
Fomapan 100 is nice but it has a small dynamic range and relatively poor resolution. I tried slitting some down to 9.2mm and shooting it in a Minox subminiature camera. It really highlighted the film’s poor resolution. I always keep a roll in my Olympus XA.
I’ve got a number of those and a few old Spotmatics in my loft. I used to be a camera technician. The BX20 is a much better camera than most people think.
Great video.
On the 'prakticar' b series lenses, while you are right about the being fewer lens than other systems, there are some lovely options available for this camera, including some pretty decent (dare i say comparatively high end) options that were made by Carl Zeiss Jena.
Definitely one to mostly stick to the prime lenses as most of the zooms are naff.
I 100% agree, even the non-CZJ primes were solid performers. Zooms were a bit hit-and-miss back then anyway, but the East German stuff was generally crap. I actually got given a CZJ 135mm f3.5 M42 for my MTL3 recently, so need to put that through its paces.
Tamron Adaptalls from the 80s and 90s had an interchangeable mount for the Praktica B. That opens up some interesting possibilities.
Good point, I'd forgotten about the Adaptall mount
Fomapan 100 is nice but it has a small dynamic range and relatively poor resolution. I tried slitting some down to 9.2mm and shooting it in a Minox subminiature camera. It really highlighted the film’s poor resolution. I always keep a roll in my Olympus XA.
And it’s got spot metering too I believe.
Unfortunately not, centre weighted with an exposure lock button on the BX-20