Exakta RTL1000

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Exakta RTL1000

The technical stuff:

Type: Single Lens Reflex

Lens: Meyer Gorlitz Oreston f1.8

Shutter: Focal Plane 1 - 1000th sec. plus low speed settings for 2,4,and 8 secs.

Another member of the Pentacon family this one is at the top end as far as reputation goes. The Exakta range has a pedigree going back to the 1930's, made by the Ihagee factory, and they have a high reputation for engineering quality. This example is a late model made under the Pentacon leadership and is fundamentally a Praktica with a difference. A major difference is that this camera, in common with it's Exakta predecessors, has a removable and interchangeable viewfinder assembly. This one is currently fitted with the standard penta prism finder with a split image and fresnel ring focusing screen but there are options of TTL metered or waist level finders, and other focusing screens available. There is no metering with this one but it does have an auto diaphragm lens. Unusually it also has left or right handed shutter release, this is a legacy thing from the older Exaktas which were left hand release only. The focusing on this camera is something else, not only does it have the split image in the centre but the fresnel ring has a kind of separation focusing, like a rangefinder, so it is absolutely bang on. You simply align using the outer ring and fine tune using the split image and with the Meyer lens it should deliver pin sharp images. The only downside with the camera is that it uses a unique lens mount making it difficult to find alternative lenses, although I believe the earlier Exakta lenses share the same mount but don't have the auto diaphragm.