G'day Fibula Mattock,

I afraid your Praktica won't get much back on insurance, but they were a camera with their good points. Despite Gervase's incorrect (or cold war propaganda driven) snipes about copies, his Pentax copied the thread from Praktica/Pentacon cameras - copied the instant return mirror from another East block camera (a Russian one that copied it in turn from a Hungarian camera).

Despite some (subsequent) 30 years as a professional photographer and a string of Nikons (the workhorses among a collection/armory of 100 plus assorted cameras) I still miss the excellent features of the Praktica Nova that ended on the wrong side of a motorbike prang in Tasmania, c. 1967.

I have an interest in close-up photography and the Praktica's f1.8 50mm Meyer Oreston focused to 30cm ... could fill the frame with a postcard-sized image without need of the extension rings. The angled front-mounted shutter release let me hold the camera like a pistol and shoot one-handed as a held, prodded or shaded the small subject. As well - it was a damned sharp lense for its aperture and in its day (which the originally fitted F2.9 Meritar was definitely not).

They were a clunky looking camera (the Asahi Pentax was copied from a much prettier Pentacon camera, the Contax S) and some of the later shutters were dubious ... but they got a lot of young photographers going ... and asking why many other cameras cared so little for the needs of photographers (as opposed to happy-snappers).

Bob Bolton