Two Praktica's in one week, must be a bonanza. Here it is, August Bank Holiday Monday, and I'm off to the local show loaded down with cameras and accessories. What a let down that turned out to be, the show was so boring I couldn't raise the enthusiasm to open the cases so we headed headed of into the sunshine. Where to go; there was a fete and car boot sale advertised in Lechlade this afternoon we'll go and check that out. We got there just in time, shortly after we arrived and parked up the village became log jammed with traffic and nothing was moving. however this was kind of useful because it gave us chance to look around without too much competition. The fete was a bit thin on the ground but the boot sale was huge, there must have been 100 stalls. I passed a couple of Zenits and an old Halina and then there was this Praktcia MTL5 complete with Carl Zeiss Jena 135 lens and 2x converter, it even had the original handbook. Both the lenses were filtered, one with a polarizer, and all was immaculate. I was like a dog with two tails, I wasn't too sure about the camera as I had only just bought the MTL50 2 days before and they are so similar, but I wanted that Carl Zeiss lens and the polarizing filter.

Enough rambling, down to business, how does it perform. Well I can't believe that the 2 cameras came from the same stable. After the disappointment of the 50 this 5b is a jem. The metering is much easier to read and way more accurate and the Pentacon lens on this one leaves the other way behind. I rarely get so many useable pictures from a first roll but this has just excelled. So sit back and enjoy the show. Incidentally, the Cotswold village featured here on the left is Bibury in Gloucestershire and the row of cottages at the top is apparently the most most photographed row of it's kind in Britain, so I'm told. The bottom pictures are from Malmesbury and the picture at the top of these is one of my favorite shots (there's a shot from the other side on the Pacemaker page). I find it sad to see this once magnificent entrance archway being allowed to decay in the way that it is. The camera, well I think the pictures tell all, and I'm sure glad I bought it.