Pentina

image by Christoph Batz (Image rights)

The Pentina is a quite unusual leaf-shutter SLR made by the East-German VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke Dresden between 1961 and 1965 . In 1964 the company was renamed VEB Pentacon, where also the name Pentina was derived from. VEB Pentacon and its predecessor companies were rather known for their successful series of focal-plane shutter SLRs (Contax, Praktica, Exa, etc.) and designing and producing a rather complex but technically limited leaf-shutter SLR seemed like a setback. However, during the late 1950ies the West-German competition (namely Kodak Retina, Voigtländer and Zeiss Ikon) successfully implemented coupled Selenium meters into their leaf-shutter SLRs. This obviously was the driving force for the East-Germans to also develop a model for this market segment.

Specifications

• SLR camera 24x36 mm with built-in prism viewfinder
• Interchangeable lenses with Pentina plug-in bayonet
• Selenium light meter with needle meter reading on top of the camera
• Film speed setting 6-1600 ASA in both, ASA and DIN scale
• Match-needle metering with adjacent aperture and shutter time rings around the lens, advertised as (semi) automatic exposure.
• Quick-release lever (like the shutter button on the left camera side), mirror does not return automatically
• Prestor-00 reflex leaf-shutter with exposure times from 1 s to 1/500 s and B
• Flash synchronization M or X, switchable, extremely short electronic flash times possible
• Image counter
• Self-timer
• Rewind crank (bottom of camera)
• Accessory shoe (cold)
• Film type marker (bottom of camera)
• Tripod socket ¼ "

Lenses

Pentina bayonet mount image by Christoph Batz (Image rights)

The Pentina features exchangeable lenses through a special breechlock type bayonet mount. Four lenses were available:

• Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 1:2,8/50 mm (standard lens with every camera)
• Meyer Lydith 1:3,5/30 mm
• Carl Zeiss Jena Cardinar 1:2,8/85 mm
• Meyer Domigor 1:4/135 mm

In early brochures a Meyer Domigon 1:3,5/30 mm was mentioned, which never made it into production. The lenses have built-in apertures, but no aperture ring to set them. This was part of the so called Kombisteller arrangement of shutter-time and aperture rings on the camera itself.

Models and Variations

There were four variants of the camera, which can clearly be distinguished by the model plate:

• Pentina (base model, see specs above)
• Pentina M (base model with additional split image focus aid)
• Pentina fm (base model with split image and micro-prism focus aid)
• Pentina E (simple model without the exposure meter)

Richard Hummel states in his book that there was a first (Type I, 1961-1963) and a second generation (Type II, 1961-65) of the camera. This has proved wrong, as with some other statements in this book. There have been a few deviating studies (assigned as type I), which never went into production . Only the type II camera (according to Hummel), was the one that was mass-produced from the start and was shown in the early 1960s brochures.

Image galery

Pentina top, bottom and (open) back images by Christoph Batz (Image rights)

Notes and References

• Pentina on KniPPsen