Flexaret VII

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Introduction

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The Flexaret VII is the last in a series of TLR cameras made by Meopta (and its predecessors)in the former Czechoslovakia. It's a fully mechanical camera with an all-metal body. It has a solid feel to it and has lots of features not normally found on TLR cameras.

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

Winding the camera transports the film and cocks the shutter at the same time. It takes quite a lot of force to wind this camera. In principle, there's no danger of double exposures with this system. There is however, a way to make double exposures: On the right hand side of the camera it has a button that glides up to cock the shutter without transporting the film.

One of the few ways to distinguish an Flexaret VII from a Flexaret VI is the maker of the shutter: the VII has a Pentacon Prestor shutter with a top speed of 1/500s whereas the VI has a Metax shutter with a top speed of 1/400s.


Lens and focus

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The lens is a Belar 80/3.5, made by Meopta itself. It has a reputation of having rather soft coatings. It gives very nice results, though. It is probably wise to use a lens hood on any TLR. Focusing is done by a sort of anchor on the bottom of the taking lens, just like on the Minolta Autocord I. This anchor can be set to operate steplessly or with "clicks" on 1m, 2m, 10m distance and infinity. Choosing between these two modes is done by a small metal switch on the left of the camera. On the Flexaret VI and VII, Meopta used a B36 bayonet mount. This means filters produced for the earlier Flexaret models can not be used. The lens tube has both an internal bayonet (for filters) and an external one to mount the hood.

Optional items

There are a few optional devices available for the Flexaret camera's, these include following items:

- A 35mm insert so you can use normal cartridges instead of rollfilm (this counts from the IVa till the VII, Flexaret I till IV and the Flexaret Standard cannot take this adaptor). Note that there are 2 type of inserts made. There is an insert for the IVa, the V and the early(black) VI (which has a serial below 50.000) , the other insert is suitable for the (grey) VI and VII.

- 35mm viewfinder (with build in rangefinder) to be used with the 35mm insert, it's not that common but it pops up on ebay from time to time at affordable prices.

- For the Flexaret VII you can even use a 6x4.5 mask (other masks like a 4x4 also exists but seem to be rare)

- Two sets of macrolenses are made, one for 1m to 0.5m and one for 0.5 to 0.33m. The lenses always come in pairs (one thick for the viewing lens and one thin for the taking lens), the one for the viewing lens has parralax correction. They give very nice results and do not degrade the quality in any way. Macrolenses made for the Flexaret I to Va will not fit the VI, VII and Standard (and Vice versa of course)

Images

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