Flexaret III
Introduction
The Flexaret III is the only one in the Flexaret TLR series to have an advance crank, not a knob. Flexarets were made by Meopta (and its predecessors)in the former Czechoslovakia. It's a fully mechanical camera with an all-metal body. The body is covered in black leather. The Meopta logo is on th black sports finder. The name plate is marked flexaret only.
For example: you can set the light value on a mechanical ring. This sets a series combinations of shutter speeds and diaphragms. When you decide you need to stop down the lens a little more, there's no need to choose the shutterspeed any more. So far, the only time I've encountered this feature was on a Hasselblad lens.
Transport and shutter
The film is advanced by a lever. There's no automatic stop; check the ruby window in the back for the next frame number to appear.
The Flexaret III has a Compur rapid shutter (B, 1-1/500s). On model IIIa, the shutter is a synchronized Prontor-S(B,1-1/250s).
Lens and focus
The taking lens is a Mirar 80/3.5, made by Meopta itself. The viewing lens is an Anastigmat 80/3.0 Focusing is done by a sort of anchor on the bottom of the taking lens, just like on the Minolta Autocord I.Meopta made push-on filters for the Flexaret II, III, IV and V. On the Flexaret VII and VI, an internal and external bayonet was used. This means filters produced for the earlier Flexaret models can not be used on the later models.
Variations
Flexaret III has an unsynchronized Compur shutter, model IIIa has a synchronized Prontor-S shutter.
Flexaret III (xxxx-xxxx) Flexaret IIIa (1951-1956)
