33Lima

Not the right type of Praktica, but there may be other pieces like this: Praktica mirror stuck up - any help? | Amateur Photographer You've tried changing the shutter speed from B to auto?

It may be that your B100's mirror is stuck - it looks to be sitting a bit high. There should be a gap of maybe 4mm between the lower edge of the mirror and the sort of black shelf that forms the base of the rectangular housing in which the mirror swings. If it doesn't look like pics you can find online of a B series with the lens off (I'm not able to post one here), you might want to search for a solution for a stuck mirror on a Praktica B series camera, or maybe others here could advise.

This is a really long shot, but is the rewind release button - the little silver disc on a shaft, in the U-shaped recess in the rear of the bottom plate, on the RH side (viewed from rear) - fully extended/down? So that the disc is nearly down level with the bottom of the camera, exposing about 2mm of its shaft above the disc? If it is not, but is pushed up, I wonder if that could be interfering with the rewind action? If the rewind release is in the pushed up position, it might be worth seeing if VERY gentle leverage with a wooden toothpick or similar, not a metal object, can ease it back down. Unlikely to be the problem I suppose, as I believe the winding on action itself is supposed to disengage the rewind release, but that in turn suggests the two items do have some sort of internal linkage, which might have got stuck somehow, eg winding on while inadvertently pressing up on the rewind - so it maybe worth a (gentle!) try. Avoid using any force or a lever like a screwdiver tip. Battery makes no difference, as these cameras will operate (wind on and fire shutter) to a fixed shutter speed without one.

Altogether, now: "Though Contax flinch and Nikons sneer We'll keep the Pratkicas snapping here!"

Thanks for the tip. I found this an interesting potted history of the L series, by Benschista: Nick's Classic Corner - No. 14 - Praktica L Series: an overview | Amateur Photographer I'm still tempted by an MTL5/5b/50, not only as I'd prefer the chance of a working meter, but also as penance for passing one by, for my first SLR :)

Thanks Dave. Nice camera, the silver BCX; think I'll leave mine well enough alone, for now, a.k.a getting out while I'm ahead :).

I'm not sure I want to see any of my Prakticas looking like that, Dave :) Do you remember, if there was anything about the shutter release that looked user serviceable - something that might be sticky and be able to be freed up so that my BCX didn't display any LEDs until the shutter release was properly half-depressed? Like a contact that was being made prematurely, or where a short-circuit dould develop, that sort of thing? A blown-up view of the shutter release area on that pic may be helful, if anything of the mechanism was visible. Still, I'm not at all sure I would fiddle with the BCX unless a more serious problem forced me to take the risk.

Nice collection there JD! About the time I got my first SLR (about 1984) I somewhat regretted choosing the Zenit 12xp over the MTL5 which I also saw demonstrated - I think because a shop had a Zenit kit at a decent price, a friend who had a Zenit TTL recommended one, and the 12xp had LEDs rather than the somewhat harder-to-see swinging needle on the MTL5 (the 5b and 50 got the LEDs IIRC). Not that the Zenit was a bad camera, it wasn't, just that the MTL seemed a somewhat better one. So I never had a screw-mount Praktica - but I will get one at some point - possibly a 5b or 50 as I gather they take batteries that are still available - and an adapter so the B series can take any screw mount lenses I get. Is there any particular M42 Praktica would you recommend? As I mentioned above, it was my darn Minolta Dynax which died on me after a couple of years of fairly light use. My original BX20 never missed a beat over 6 years or so. It's still my favourite, and I don't find it any more 'plastiky' than a Glock compared to a Browning to take a 9mm rather than a 35mm example :) And the 'shutter cocked' viewfinder indication and TTL flash were welcome and useful, compared to earlier B series cameras (and to many of the supposedly so superior but certainly pricier Japanese competitors). However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that even without the BX20s handgrip, the BCX and BC1 feel at least equally good in the hand - the lens mount being closer to the right hand, for a non-southpaw anyway, means the earlier types are actually better balanced, for me anyway. Perhaps a Jenaflex AM or a bC3 should be next... :)

OK, that seems to have worked - LED indications are now as they should be. Thanks again for the tip, Dave! I think I'll leave the BCX alone, for now, as dis-assembly is a bit more complicated and the risk of messing up something higher, when the camera appears to work perfectly well if I remember to switch to B, to turn her off fully. Happy to get the duff lens fixed!

Thanks, Dave, your tip gave me the confidence to open her up! I'm waiting for the glue to develop enough strenght to re-assemble the lens, and will report back if it worked - fingers crossed!

OK I've found what's almost certainly the problem. I levered out the small plastic inner ring/spacer from the rear of the lens as before, exposing four small crosshead screws around the flat inner face of the shiny metal rear of the lens, that mates with the lens mount on the camera body. These screws were removed and the shiny metal mating ring was removed. This exposed a black metal ring retained by another three small screws, to which the three spring-loaded contacts were fitted, and a small metal ring that operated the DoF preview. Two of these screws were rather tight but they all came out. I lifted the black ring carefully in case the three contacts were released and flew off but they were fixed to the black ring, which was held to the body of the lens by a green wire which ran from one of the contacts to a folded brass contact wiper. The rear of the ring had a dark contact strip which I took to be the fixed part of the mechanism for transmitting aperture setting. The moveable contact was the folded brass wiper which run on the lower face of the contact strip. This wiper moved with the shutter ring, which tended to confirm its function. Inspecting this wiper revealed that it was loose. It had been retained by two (plastic?) rivets. These had sheared. You can just about see these, under my rather grubby thumbnail, which is holding up the folded brass contact wiper. Next step is to glue this back, then put everything back together and see if it works!

Thanks Dave! Apart from the irritating-but live-able issue of the electronics not completely turning off unless shutter speed dial is set to 'B', the BCX seems fine with my other three PB lenses (all zooms). So I'm thinking your second tip is along the right lines, and that as the pancake lens isn't really usable in its current state, it'd be worth a try dismantling the rear to see if I can find any issue with the mechanism, whatever it is, that transmits the aperture setting from the aperture ring to the relevant contact(s) on the back of the lens. I'll have a look on Youtube for lens disassembly videos, I think there may have been one on PB lenses.