Practica MTL camera

Can someone kindly help me to help an old widowed lady trying to find a home for her late husbands practica camera, plus practica 50mm lens. Also a Sirus 135 macro lens.
There is also an extension tube marked for Pentax
I know nothing of this equipment. Being the Pentax man at our camera club I have been chosen to do the research.
Any info with possible value would help

regards thoramay.

The value is low and this is the sort of thing I would put on eBay with no real expectations. Just sometimes an item will sell for a good price, but mostly we are in the £10-£20 bracket here.

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Best regards, John

As John says the MTL5 body (even a good working one) is probably worth no more than £10-20. The 135mm lens is probably in the same sort of area, maybe even slightly less. M42 extension tubes are virtually a giveaway item so no real value there either.

The interesting bit is the lens. Prakticas of that era could be had with a choice of four different 50mm lenses as "standard" and the second hand values vary wildly. Cheapest was the Meyer Domiplan 50/2.8 (probably worth under £10 now), then came the Zeiss Tessar 50/2.8 (worth around £25-30 now), then the Pentacon 50/1.8 (I sold one recently for just shy of £50) and finally - for well heeled Praktica buyers - came the Zeiss Pancolar 50/1.8 (Chinese bidders on eBay go mad for these and on a good day you can see them fetch as much as £80-100).

So the value of the kit as a whole rests heavily on which 50mm lens is attached to the front of the camera, and that lens will fetch a higher price on its own than it will with the camera attached to it (buyers want the lens, they don't want to pay postage for a body that will in all likeliness be consigned immediately to the nearest bin or charity shop).

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Joining the Q

Thanks John and Hefty. I am an old softy and want to help this widow. I would rather be caught myself than make on her late husbands memory and so your info is a great help. Will visit in the morning and see what is there. From your comments do I gather that the lens will be M42?

regards thoramay.

Most of the Praktica's are M42 but there are also a few Practica bayonet models, a unique fitting.

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Best regards, John

If it's an MTL (3 or 5) then yes it's M42. The bayonet bodies all had model numbers starting with a "B" (B100, B200, BCA, BX20, etc).

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Joining the Q

It is the 5 and M42. The 50mm is the Pentagon. Have risked £30. Is it worth getting a M42 adaptor to try the lens out before putting on the dreaded E.Bay?

Thamks again for your advice.

Regards thoramay.

I've got a couple of Praktica's under the desk that I can't give away.

Sadly, they seem to be out of favour. They weren't a bad camera in there day though.

The Pentacon is a nice enough lens with a similar feel (in terms of image) to the various Pentax 50/1.7's. If you already have one of the Pentax lenses then I wouldn't bother keeping the Pentacon, if you don't already have one of the Pentax lenses then yes; get an M42 adapter and use it.


I'm keeping my BX20 - it's a nice solid camera but worth so little I'd rather keep hold of it for sentimental reasons if nothing else. Shame I can't use the bayonet lenses on my Pentax in the same way I can M42s...

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Joining the Q

The Praktica IV was my first DSLR, I think I was 15 when I got it, so that's 50 years ago. - Yikes!




Happy days!

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Best regards
Richard Day

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