The definitive equipment listing for Prakticas on the internet
	Main  |  Camera Bodies  |  Lenses  |  Accessories  |  Photo index  |  Contact  Cameras -> Praktica nova -> Prakticamat Introduced in 1965, the Prakticamat was largely based on the nova chassis but slightly taller. Its TTL metering working on the stopped-down principle is of a design still unparalleled in accuracy. Ideally, the metering sensor in a TTL system is of exactly the same size as the film format, placed right at the film plane, something quite impossible in practice. Being the closest simulation of this ideal situation, the Prakticamat meter takes its reading directly from the entire area of the focussing screen, itself a surrogate film plane, with the help of a complex focussing screen and condenser structure in which a beam-splitter is incorporated. A constant 7% of the light hitting the focussing screen from the mirror side is siphoned off towards the back edge of the screen structure, and intercepted by a single large CdS (cadmium sulfide) photoresister which gives a reading averaged across the entire film format area. As the beam-splitter works only one way, light entering the eyepiece has no effect on metering accuracy. The meter is powered by a PX625 or PX13 mercury cell, with a battery check function incorporated. Another interesting feature of the Prakticamat is that it preceded the nova 1 models in offering a single, non-rotating shutter speed dial with evenly spaced settings, with a maximum speed of 1/1000s, and is located around the rewind knob; a feature not to be seen again until the EE2 twelve years later, if we do not count the rare Praktica electronic. All in all, a machine of Wagnerian magnificence. Prakticamat manual - German Back | Index