Practicar 300mm 1:4f

zewrak · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 1193

A friend just bought this off ebay for ?16. Anyone know anything about it? It's very hard to find any information on the interweb. Is it some copy of a Practikar or did they just mispell it? Hows the quality etc?

zewrak · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 1193

Alright, lets try with some pictures. Here is the link to the auction

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270235548186&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=017

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

I have almost exactly the same lens I think, sold as an "Upsilon".

Mine is in YS mount.

Its very soft at f/4

Attila · Expire: 2021-11-18

Low quality Japanese lens, I had in 24mm.

peterqd · Expire: 2014-01-04

I think this was a spelling error, it's a common mistake. (You've spelt it wrongly yourself zewrak Smile

) It should be Prakticar.

The story of the Prakticar lenses is complicated. The name originated in East Germany by Zeiss and Meyer/Pentacon when the Praktica B mount was introduced, but when Germany was unified these factories closed down and the brandnames were continued by various Japanese manufacturers, including Sigma, who probably introduced their own new designs. I don't know anything about this particular lens but I think it's probably a Japanese design. If you want to research it, here's some information to start you off:

http://praktica.planetaclix.pt/lenses.html

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

Looking more closely, this one your friend has is also a YS-mount. Its almost exactly the same as my Upsilon.

Check for -

- That the aperture opens and closes reliably, as the mechanism seems designed to stick, and the aperture closing spring is weak.

- Oil. Mine was full of it, covering the two rear elements.

- If he needs to fix the thing, particularly the rear elements, you may need to unscrew the front elements in order to push them out. CAUTION ! The front does not unscrew as a unit but when the front ring comes off you just have a collection of loose lenses, rings, etc.

Its quite a simple lens to fix if he has to.

mhuk · Joined: 13 May 2008 Posts: 12

I had a low bid on this. The JAPAN on the side stopped me bidding higher than a quid as it clearly wasn't the Zeiss Jena version. I googled plenty before bidding and found nothing with either spelling.

zewrak · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 1193

Hmz. The seller was 100% sure that it was screwfit? I mailed him and asked, yashica isnt screwfit is it?

luisalegria · Expire: 2018-01-18

My mistake, I thought YS system was developed by Yashica, it was actually designed by Sigma.

YS system was a lot like the Tamron Adaptall or Tamron T/T2 or Soligor/Vivitar T4/TX adapter systems.

The YS mount system was designed to allow YS-lenses to fit many cameras. The lens itself has a 42x.75 thread (the same as a T-mount thread) and has an aperture pin. A YS mount lens lens without the YS mount adapter actually looks a lot like an auto M42, but it isn't.

To this you screw a YS mount adapter, which is different from a T-mount in that it converts the aperture pin in the lens to whatever automatic aperture mechanism the camera needs. Sometimes the YS mount adapter was very complex.

The photo of this Prakticar lens shows that it has a YS mount. YS mounts usually had an engraving saying "YS - XX", where "XX" was the code for the camera mount, so a YS mount for Nikon would be "YS-NI", Minolta SR would be labelled "YS-SR". I have Nikon and Minolta YS adapters that I got with some lenses recently.

On the Prakticar lens, the "YS" is visible on the adapter. The problem is I cant see the mount code properly.

There was a Pentax/M42 screw YS mount, maybe thats the one on this lens. The Pentax screw adapter was labelled "YS-PE" I think, there was also a version for the Spotmatic ES labelled "YS-ES". The difference is the ES had more linkages than the regular Pentax, but it should still work.

If it doesn't have the right YS adapter, you can use a T-mount, it will just screw in. The problem using a T-mount is that it will lose automatic operation. The other problem with this lens (Prakticar/Upsilon or whatever it really is) is that it does not have a manual mode, it is automatic only, so it will only work at f/4 with a T-mount, unless you do something to force in the aperture pin - see above. I just used a wood shim between the T-mount and the lens - but my lens has a defective aperture spring, so it does not work properly this way either.

zewrak · Joined: 12 Apr 2008 Posts: 1193

Well it was posted under "To fit pentax" so let's hope the adapter is one of them then. The aperturepin isn't very hard to fix. Liquid glasfiber is excellent for the job i think Very Happy

.

ANyways, it should arrive shortly, I'll get back to you with test pictures (if we can get it to work).