Pentacon Praktica LLC: How to use the Meter?

[FoidPoosening]

Hey everyone!

So I recently picked up a gorgeous Pentacon Praktica LLC at a flea market. It's complete with two pentacon electric lenses, case, manuals, everything it came with new. The shutter works great, everything is snappy and all seems to be well (did an extensive check on it before I purchased it).

Anyway, I managed to find the 4.5V battery on amazon for cheap with free shipping! I've always been curious to try one of these out.

Now that I have the battery in it, I'm really not sure of how to read this meter. I know I depress the shutter actuator button down slightly (not all the way) to activate the metering, and there's a black needle in the viewfinder that moves up and down. It moves closer to or further from the accompanying black circle in the viewfinder when metering. My intuition tells me I have to line one up inside the other, but I'm not sure what needs to be done to achieve that? I'll probably kick myself when I hear the answer, but I'd like to know!

I've looking online and found a few people say they figured it out, but have found no articles explaining the process.

I can't wait to shoot a roll of film with this thing using the metering, but before I do that I'd like to make sure I know what's going on here.

Does anyone have one of these or know anything about how to properly utilize the meter?

Best regards and thanks everyone,

Dan

 

[jochen]

Hello Dan,
I have a Praktika MTL 5 and the meter seems to be very similar. You are right, you have to align the needle and the circle for correct exposition. You have to remember that this is a fully mechanical camera with a matched needle system, to achieve this you can either vary the aperture setting of the lens or the shutter speed or both. May be the speed wheel has to be set exactly on the marking and not between two time settings.

 

[Andrew K]

Mike Butkus has a instruction book for the LLC you can download on his website - http://www.butkus.org/chinon/praktica/praktica_llc/praktica_llc-splash.htm

Does your camera have the correct lens on it - the one with the electric contacts on the back of it? If it does then you should get full aperture metering. If you have to stop the lens down to meter then I would suggest pulling the back end off the lens off and cleaning the variable resistor as it can get dirty through use/age...

 

[FoidPoosening]

Hello Dan,
I have a Praktika MTL 5 and the meter seems to be very similar. You are right, you have to align the needle and the circle for correct exposition. You have to remember that this is a fully mechanical camera with a matched needle system, to achieve this you can either vary the aperture setting of the lens or the shutter speed or both. May be the speed wheel has to be set exactly on the marking and not between two time settings.

Alright. So now I know for sure what I need to do, match them up! And thanks for the info on the speed setting.

Mike Butkus has a instruction book for the LLC you can download on his website - http://www.butkus.org/chinon/praktica/praktica_llc/praktica_llc-splash.htm

Does your camera have the correct lens on it - the one with the electric contacts on the back of it? If it does then you should get full aperture metering. If you have to stop the lens down to meter then I would suggest pulling the back end off the lens off and cleaning the variable resistor as it can get dirty through use/age...

Yes I have two Pentacon electric labeled lenses, a 29mm and a 135mm. Is what you're describing simply making sure the contact points on the camera and the lens are clean, or are you suggesting an actually dis-assembly of part of the lens to get to something?

Thanks so far and looking forward to hearing from you and getting this solved,

Dan