Pentona II (1963)

Pentona II (1963)

#404

This photo is from the copy I own

History and technical features 

The Pentona is a viewfinder camera for 35mm film. It was developed by Zeiss Ikon and produced first by KW and later Pentacon.

The black coated parts of the camera's body and the bottom are one part which has to be removed for film load. Thumb wheels (knurls) on top and bottom serve as film advance/rewind controls. Other elements on the top are the flash shoe, the shutter release and the exposure counter. The viewfinder is a reverse-Galilean type. The metal surround of this has two tooth-like pointers near the top, which are parallax-correction guides for use at close focus.

In the middle of the bottom is a second thumb wheel, the camera lock. Another element on the bottom is a tripod screw thread. The most characteristic part of this camera model is the metal front part of the body, in which the lens tube is mounted. Nearest to that part is the aperture control ring. The middle of the lens tube is the speed setting thumb wheel. In front of that part the tube is narrowed towards the inner part of the lens tube. This inner tube with engraved distance scale which turns for focusing.

Model II

The Pentona II was introduced in 1963 and is properly a Pentacon model. It has a much bigger viewfinder than the first model; McKeown states that this has a bright-line frame, which must be of the albada type. The camera has a film advance lever instead of a knob. The front bodywork is much simpler than the characteristic shaped front of the earlier model.

Source: camera-wiki.org

The Pentacon Pentona is an unusual camera in the Pentacon camera family but it offers some great features, most notably its lens. Read more after the break!

The VEB Pentacon firm in Dresden, which was then East Germany, was the biggest camera and lens factory in the GDR between 1959 and 1990. Best known for its ‘Praktica’ series of SLR cameras, it did however produce a few other more curious gems throughout its relatively long existence, including the Pentacon Six 120-film SLR leviathan, as well as two versions of the camera that I’m going to review here, the 35mm Pentacon Pentona.

Originally produced in 1956 by KW, a camera manufacturer that later got absorbed into VEB Pentacon, the Pentona is a fairly basic little point-and-shoot camera which might well have been aimed primarily at children (the frame counter dial has a lovely little smiley face on it.) It nonetheless has some highly attractive features in both of its two versions (I’m reviewing here the second version which differed only in minor details from the first.)

It has a lovely bright viewfinder positioned right above the lens which if combined with clear correction pointers, reduces parallax error to a minimum. It’s robustly built — mostly of aluminum rather than plastic. The whole of the back slides off to load the film, creating more of a light-tight seal to last. It’s small in the hand, and has an incredibly quiet shutter. The film wind lever is on the left (rather than on the right as is more common) and needs to be wound quite firmly along a short span three times to both prime the shutter, advance the film, and move the frame counter.

Finally, the shutter won’t work without film in the camera — the sprocket holes on the film turn a cocking wheel mounted at the center of the camera. Shutter speeds are limited at B-130-60-125. And aperture settings likewise, it’s between 3.5 and 22. It is an all-manual camera with shutter and aperture setting levers mounted on the front lens itself. There is no rangefinder or another way to get exact focus — you have to rotate the lens barrel to the range that you want. This will probably all sound relatively familiar to anyone with a Smena but I think the Pentona has better general build quality and a knockout lens.

Source: lomography.com


Specifications

Specifications
Type: viewfinder camera
Manufacturer: KW
Year of launch: 1956
Film: 35mm
Lens: achromatic Meyer-Optik Görlitz Trioplan 1:3.5/45
Shutter: Priomat leaf shutter, flash-synchronized with speeds 1:/30 to 1/125 sec. plus B
or Prestor RVS shutter with speeds 1 sec. to 1/500 sec. plus B
Aperture: 1:3.5 to 1:22
Viewfinder: optical
Film advance: knurl, advancing unlocks shutter for next exposure
Dimensions: 125 × 84 × 67 mm

Source: camera-wiki.org


Model


Reference sites

camera-wiki.org

lomography.com

simonhawketts.co.uk


Manual


Film


Pictures taken with this machine


Videos