Pentacon Consol

[gene m]

<a href="http://westfordcomp.com/classics/consol/october06/consol06.htm"> Beauty

and, well....<a>

[john carter]

I just think it is funny. I like the guy in your backyard, he looks like my friend.

[john carter]

By the way, I missed the Clipper very nice.

[Brian]

Nice looking camera deployed, as always, to fullest advantage. Was Pentacon using the M42 screw mount on that model?

[gene m]

Yes, it's a screw mount.

[joshx]

I love that first photo of the stalks of grass/grain. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

[h._p.]

My first serious camera was a Pentacon FM which was, I believe, the last model in the range, introduced around 1959. It was a nice old thing and I got a lot of pleasure from it.

[sebastien_lallement]

Great Camera. Usually these carry the name "Contax D" on the front. They are so elegant. One of the most nicely designed 35mm SLRs, IMHO.

 

Cheers,

 

Sebastien

 

Fujica G690 online resource: http://artbig.com/

[conrad_poulin]

I like the attention you pay to the use of the natural lighting. Nicely

done.

[arnie___]

I got one of these under the name "Hexacon" from Peerless Camera in New York City in 1955. If you pushed gently on the shutter release, you could get the mirror up without tripping the shutter. Then another gentle push on the angled shutter release made it easy to hand-hold slow shutter speeds. The 50mm F2.8 Tessar could be held in reversed position in the lens mount without any light leakage for extreme closeups. Arnie

[h._p.]

<<Usually these carry the name "Contax D">>

 

In "Collecting and Using Classic SLRs", Ivor Matanle states that the Pentacon FM is probably the commonest model produced.

 

The Contax D was an earlier model in the same range. Basically, the first SLR to be fitted with a pentaprism as standard was the 1948 Contax S, although Roger Hicks points out in "A History of the 35mm Still Camera" that there was a patent for the pentaprism as early as 1941 and Wray filed a patent for a pentaprism equipped SLR in 1947.

 

The Contax D appeared in 1952 with a different viewfinder screen and semi-automatic aperture control. In the early 'fifties, Zeiss in Dresden lost the rights to use the Contax brand name and renamed the camera "Pentacon". There were various minor design changes over the next few years before the range was finally dropped at the end of the 'fifties in favour of the Praktica models.

 

The Pentacon name was resurrected in the mid-sixties, firstly with the Pentacon Six medium format SLR (a refinement of the Praktisix) and then with the amazing and very rare Pentacon Super.

[sebastien_lallement]

According to McKeown, the ConSol camera (not wearing the Pentacon brand) is "a rare name variation of the Pentacon (Contax D). Identical except for the factory-engraved ConSol Name." This camera first appeared in 1948 under the name Pentacon, then was sold concurrently under several names: Contax D (1952), Hexacon (1954), ConSol (1955) and even as a non branded "no-name" camera. It was produced by the former Zeiss-Ikon factory in Dresden, which eventually became part of the VEB Pentacon firm in 1964. The Contax FM is a later (1957), different model with built-in exposure meter.

 

Cheers,

 

Sebastien

[h._p.]

"The Contax FM is a later (1957), different model with built-in exposure meter."

 

No, it isn't. The Metered model is either the E or the FB, both of which had a selenium meter grafted, rather inelegantly, onto the prism cover. The FM was the non-metered model with a split image rangefinder spot in the middle of the focusing screen. The F was the same model again without the rangefinder spot. The F series all had fully automatic aperture actuation.

 

The confusion creeps in because the East Germans marketed all models from the D onwards under both the Contax and Pentacon brands, depending on geographical location and, possibly, the phase of the moon.

 

They were marvellous cameras for the time and it's a great pity that Pentacon VEB, the successor company to East German Zeiss, pursued a policy of cheap production that hit its nadir in the Praktica Nova series. Mind you, even the Novas could be smashing cameras to use when they did work.<div></div>