Revueflex SD-1/Chinon CS-4. opinions?

blockend · Oct 27, 2020

cklammer said:
CZJ finished eveloped and started using thier famous metal shitter from the early 1970ies until 1990 or s

We had a brick one when I was a child. It was cold and full of spiders.

cklammer · Oct 27, 2020

Shitter, shutter - schnickschnack

No CZJ made their own focal-plan metal shutter and put into the Prakticas in order to be able to compete with the West German Camera Industry (which was basically mostly gone by the early 1970ies due to their insistence to the central in-lens leaf shutters).

In Eastern Germany after WW2 they issues sourcing sufficient leaf shutters as with the Cold War heating up, sourcing of leaf shutters from Western Germany ceased due to embargoes and lack of western currency.

So in Eastern Germany they were forced to look to develop their own shutters and CZJ/Pentacon went down the focal-plane road in the end.

RLangham · Oct 27, 2020

cklammer said:
Shitter, shutter - schnickschnack

No CZJ made their own focal-plan metal shutter and put into the Prakticas in order to be able to compete with the West German Camera Industry (which was basically mostly gone by the early 1970ies due to their insistence to the central in-lens leaf shutters).

In Eastern Germany after WW2 they issues sourcing sufficient leaf shutters as with the Cold War heating up, sourcing of leaf shutters from Western Germany ceased due to embargoes and lack of western currency.

So in Eastern Germany they were forced to look to develop their own shutters and CZJ/Pentacon went down the focal-plane road in the end.

Ah, right. I don't find the mechanical workings of the Praktica shutter as elegant as the Copal design... it's a different design altogether with a much different arrangement of transport levers. Presumably by this time infringing on patents would be enough of a problem even between eastern bloc countries and western bloc ones, unlike earlier when every large country had their own Leica copy or copies to an extent that would be considered criminal today.

AgX · Oct 27, 2020

cklammer said:
No, CZJ made their own focal-plan metal shutter and put into the Prakticas in order to be able to compete with the West German Camera Industry (which was basically mostly gone by the early 1970ies due to their insistence to the central in-lens leaf shutters).

Prakticas were made by Pentacon, not by CZJ.
CZJ absorbed Pentacon in 1985, but only as holding, not as engineering entity. CZJ themselves only had a very limted camera production.

The shutter you refer was designed and made by Pentacon.

cklammer · Nov 1, 2020

Thanks, I stand corrected.

AgX said:
Prakticas were made by Pentacon, not by CZJ.
CZJ absorbed Pentacon in 1985, but only as holding, not as engineering entity. CZJ themselves only had a very limted camera production.

The shutter you refer was designed and made by Pentacon.

AgX · Nov 1, 2020

RLangham said:
Ah, right. I don't find the mechanical workings of the Praktica shutter as elegant as the Copal design... it's a different design altogether with a much different arrangement of transport levers. Presumably by this time infringing on patents would be enough of a problem even between eastern bloc countries and western bloc ones, unlike earlier when every large country had their own Leica copy or copies to an extent that would be considered criminal today.

The western market was a very important one for Pentacon. They could not design a shutter that in effect would block sales of their cameras on those markets.

RLangham · Nov 1, 2020

AgX said:
The western market was a very important one for Pentacon. They could not design a shutter that in effect would block sales of their cameras on those markets.

But of course. Still, it comes off as clunky, especially in that it produces a noticeable click when going to 1/500th speed. It does seem more like Soviet engineering than German engineering, but then again such stereotypes are often specious.

AgX · Nov 1, 2020

With blocking sales I referred to possible patent infringement on Copal or others, not on quality issues.

RLangham said:
Still, it comes off as clunky, especially in that it produces a noticeable click when going to 1/500th speed. .

I do not experience such at all at my samples from the Praktica L-series. Didn't you indicate before that your experience is based on just one sample?

RLangham · Nov 1, 2020

AgX said:
With blocking sales I referred to possible patent infringement on Copal or others, not on quality issues.

I do not experience such at all at my samples from the Praktica L-series. Didn't you indicate before that your experience is based on just one sample?

This is true, but I did not assume there was a problem with my sample owing to the general condition. I just found the overall sounds of turning the dial a little louder and less pleasant than on a comparable camera.

Revueflex SD-1/Chinon CS-4. opinions?

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