I was actually amazed when this camera arrived. I won it for 99pence plus postage on eBay and thought the seller would cancel the bid or the order. Recently, that seems to often happen when I win things cheaply. But the seller was very honest and this lovely example of the Super TL body arrived within the week. It didn’t have a lens, but that was ok as I have a few M42 lenses.

This camera was produced between 1968-76. You can find loads of technical details on the Praktica Collector’s site. My example had been recovered in a lovely maroon skin, really well. The light seals also looked to be in good condition.

Though the light meter worked, I felt it was a bit off so I used an external one to set the camera while using it. I attached a Helios 44m-4 or a Zeiss f3.5 135 then loaded an unknown film. It really was unknown, I got it from a friend who had received it from a friend who had bulk-rolled it. My friend couldn’t remember what it was. The most we knew was that it might be an expired 400 something. I ended up shooting it at 50asa on a random walk near my house. I didn’t feel like putting too much effort into it as I really just wanted to see how the camera handled and felt sure the film would not produce anything viable.

Once complete, I sent the film to Photo Hippo with a message…I have no idea what this is, I don’t mind if it is cross-processed, please see what you can do. The very next day, I got a download link to these shots. It turned out to be an ECN2 film, I hadn’t noticed a remjet layer so I think it had been removed prior to bulk rolling.

There are a couple of other tests within this roll. The toys were taken using a new set of flash/lights I treated myself to. They have a model light function so I decided to try it out with the toys. There wasn’t enough light for the 50asa film so I had to use a very low speed and aperture, something like 1/30th at f2. The other test was for a cokin rainbow filter. My attempt looks like a random semi-circle in the sky with no colours at all. You need to use f22 or above and the Helios lens just went to f16, hence it didn’t work. I could tell in the viewfinder so gave up immediately. I will have to try it with another set-up at some point.

As for the camera, I think I am going to give this one away as I don’t see myself using it again. There was nothing wrong with it, I just have many others I prefer. It did what it said on the tin, but didn’t wow me.