New baby - Braun Paxette

[Eric Rose]

My sweetie picked this camera up for me at a garage sale. It's in mint minus condition. I would say if it had 10 rolls of film through it that would be pushing it. Even the inside of the leather never ready case is pristine. Heck the meter still works and is within about 1/2 stop. Close enough for B&W for sure. Just put a roll of FP4 into it and am about 1/2 way through it. Once I soup the film I will post some scans. Here are some images of the camera. Not sure what model this baby is. It has a Steinheil Munchen -E- Cassarit 2.8 50mm lens. The cool thing is it's leaf shutter and you can change lenses.

 

[snapguy]

nice

Very nice camera. I run into something like this once in a while. I continue to be amazed at how some half-a-century-plus cameras can be found in such great shape. I found a Canon Canonet that had one tiny scratch on the bottom. The next time I looked for it I could not find it, the scratch was so small.

 

[ntenny]

The Cassarit is a Tessar type, I believe. Should perform nicely. I don't know much about these cameras---are you going to be able to find additional lenses?

(Is the shutter in the lens or behind the lens? Pretty impressive engineering to do either one well in a compact like that.)

-NT

 

[AgX]

The interesting thing is that the shutter is located behind the lens. That enables keeping the shutter at the body and still using standard lens designs, but with a propriatory barrel of course.

Only the wide angle lenses must be of the retro-focus type.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Looks like a great camera. Like to see sme photos.

Jeff

 

[Tom1956]

What a cute little sweetie-pie.

 

[elcabezagrande]

The Cassarit lens is a fine performer. Here is a set shot with mine, on a Braun Super II:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/greyscale3/sets/72157643774465754/

 

[darkosaric]

I found Super Praxette on flea market - but my Cessarit lens was not giving me nice results. By looking other samples on the net - probably I got damaged lens. But camera itself is nice - small and heavy - feels very good in hands.

 

[AgX]

It is a triplet, but I don't know whether it is a simple one, or a modified, Tessar-type one.

 

[hdeyong]

Hang on to that sweetie! (The lady, that is).

 

[Eric Rose]

I definitely will be hanging on to my sweetie (my wife that is) she's a keeper. Glad to hear the lens is a Tessar as I love them. This camera is freakishly quite. Would be great as a street shooter.

 

[AgX]

First I wondered that a camera of that level has not got a cable release socket. But then I realized it is located at the shutter itself.

(On that position one won't be able to connect directly a time release. One would need a an adapter. But the shutter has got a time release.)

 

[nosmok]

Paxettes are addictive like salt peanuts, and like salt peanuts are ultimately not good for you! I have a bunch, both rf and non-rf coupled. While the non-coupled flat top paxette II- with the interchangeable lenses - is by far the prettiest, the Super IIBL that you have is probably the best user of the bunch. The ergonomics are great, except the tiny and dark lettering on the light meter, and the weirdo rewind mechanism. But it feels great to shoot, and it is quiet. Wish they had gone wider than 35mm in the lens family.

 

[AgX]

"weirdo rewind mechanism"

I has a lever for rewinding (similar to that for forward advance) as the space for the rewind knob is taken by the exposure meter.

 

[Rick A]

I owned one of these little gems a few years back. My decision to only keep a couple of my 35mm's saw me selling off my collection of RF's and most of my SLR's. These are very capable cameras and I loved the diminutive size, very handy to have along on walkabouts.