yet another film body - Practica BCA

[fuzzywuzzy]

You people are a bad influence!

I cheerfully confess that I bought this for the bundled Pentacon Practicar 135/2.8 bokeh monster. It also included a 50/2.4 pancake lens.

It's PB bayonet mount, when my EF adapter arrives from Hong Kong I'll see if I can hit infinity. No big deal, the bokeh monster is for portraits and I've got no shortage of 50s.

This is compact and light (for an SLR anyway) especially with the pancake lens.

Exposure is fully automatic. There only way to set exposure manually is "B" . But you can set +/- in half stop increments up to 2 stops, in practice that should be OK. If I expect wierd lighting conditions I have other bodies.

I've found very little info about the 50/2.4. I see Trifox made some great images here - http://forum.mflenses.com/prakticar-2-4-50-and-extension-tubes-t26052,highlight,prakticar.html

Went for a walk in -20C today, got 2 shots in before the mirror stopped returning. It was fine once I got it back inside the house, but my search for a reliable cold weather film body continues.

I've been lucky buying cameras from evilbay. There isn't a mark on the body or lenses. I don't think it was used a whole lot, the battery is original, says "specially manufactured for Praktica by Duracell"

Gotta finish that test roll and get it developed, I'm not used to delaying my gratification!

[bob955i]

Batteries don't do so well at very low temperatures so at -20C I'd expect the battery to pretty much give up. Chances are that if you had removed the battery and shoved it in your trouser pocket for a bit, or put it somewhere warm, it would have recovered and you'd have been able to resume shooting.

Pop a spare in a small poly bag for electrical insulation and keep it somewhere warm on your body - you can then swap between the two when one stops working due to low temperatures.

I've had this with a 5D battery that stopped working at -12C.

[fuzzywuzzy]

[Minolfan]

For very cold wheather you had better taken a mechanical body, only the meter fed by the battery. Keep an extra handhold meter warm in your pocket. That is OMHO the best chance to keep going on frosty days. I take a Minolta SR1s for that, never failed till -17°C (never had lower temperature here )

[bob955i]

[ManualFocus-G]

I've got a few of these old PB Praktica bodies now My first SLR was a BX20 (I still have it) and I've since collected a few lenses too. The Pentacon 135/2.8 isn't the bokeh monster as such, but it will still take nice portraits

[bob955i]

I always liked the 'grenade' styling of the B200 even though it was essentially the same as the BC-1.

I fitted a Sigma Zoom Master 2.8-4/35-70 zoom on my BC-1 and there it more or less stayed for twenty years until I retired the combo in 2006 when I got a 5D.