Praktika MTL3

A chance encounter awakes an interest

I used to work in Cardiff and enjoyed a stroll through the shops at lunchtime. A regular haunt was the old Jessops store. That was in the days of the original Jessops and in those days Cardiff had two of them! A major feature was the second hand cameras - they took over half of the store. This caught my eye.

The Zenit had not received much interest for several years. I'd taken the Canen ShureShot with me everywhere I went, because that was a simple point and shoot. Just take the picture. But I still had the Zenit and all of the lenses and accessories. I wanted to see if they still worked, but the Zenit was just too much faff.

Where the soviets failed the East German's won out. Yes another communist era camera. But this was posh. The diaphram stopped down automatically and the CDS through-the-lens meter was linked to the exposure controls. You still had to focus (this was the eighties!) and you still had to centre the needles