Fifties bare metal slr style

[belgiumreporter]

When organising the fifties slr's i noticed they had this very distinctive styling with the bare metal (aluminum) lens barrels. This was mainly a German design thing but a few early Japanese slr's and russian clones used the same styling as well.

These days early slr's and bare metal lenses are becoming harder to find (save for some praktica's). I've been able to collect a few (couldn't find my asahi flex or it would be in the picture as well) and i think if i would add a Zenit C and a early Exakta with a Biotar there isn't much else available in this style, exept if i would go for slr's with a central shutter like Voigtlanders or Zeiss-Ikon wich is something i wont do.
Maybe by the end of this year when camera fairs will be allowed again, i'll be able to find something nice.

[belgiumreporter]

I've found the Asahiflex, here it is in all of its metal beauty :-)



Look at just how small it is compared to the German competition. The Asahiflex clearly is still based upon a rangefinder body design with added mirror box, while the Praktiflex is a full size SLR. Both had waist level finders, pentaprism finders were a novelty in those days. The Asahiflex also had an optical finder, just in case ! (Alpa and Praktiflex did so to)



The Alpa optical finder even has different settings for different focal lenghts



here's the  Praktina's finder, i'm not sure but i believe there was a Praktica wich also had an optical finder.

[John Farrell]

I have a Zenit C, and it too shows its rangefinder camera origins - it is based on the Zorki, which is a close Leica copy. It dates from the same time as the Asahiflex, and doesn't have an instant return mirror, but it does have an eye level viewfinder. Mine came without a takeup spool, and a friend gave me the spool from a Leica, which worked fine after a small modification.