Cosina CSM

As I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Cosina have an undeservedly poor reputation. In fact, in addition to their own designs made under their own name, they make cameras for the big-name camera companies. The Zeiss Ikon rangefinder was made by Cosina as are many Carl Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses.

Cosina CSM

This camera is a Cosina design sold under their own name. It is fairly basic but with an electronically controlled shutter. I can tell that the shutter is electronically controlled because it  works without batteries but at the same slow speed regardless of the speed setting (a fully electronic shutter will not work at all without batteries). With batteries the shutter speeds are clearly variable.

The top plate is standard for a camera made in the late 1970s (introduced in 1978, I think). Far right is a small window for the frame counter. This is reset to zero when the camera back is opened. Next is the film advance lever. This is a metal plate covered with a plastic casing. It sits just proud of the back and is easy to use. It moves through about 210 degrees to advance the film one frame.It is not on a racket so just be moved in one motion.

In front of the advance lever is the shutter release button. this is chrome plated and threaded for a standard cable release. Below the shutter release is a lock switch. It has two positions - A and L. A is the working position and L is the lock position. I quite approve of shutter locks as over the years I have wasted many hundreds of frames of film by accidentally tripping the shutter. This lever is black.

Cosina CSM - top plate

Next along is the shutter speed dial. This runs from 4 seconds through 1 second to 1/1000 seconds. 1/60 is marked in red and I am sure will be the flash synchronisation speed. There are also positions marked in green - M and B. I have no idea what the M position is for and it is not mentioned in the manual (available from Butkus's website). B is for Bulb and is the standard of the shutter remaining open whilst the the shutter release is depressed.

Nested in the tangle of the film advance lever is a small chrome button. Pressing this disconnects the film advance mechanism to allow the film to be rewound.

The pentaprism hump has the accessory shoe on it. This has electrical contacts (so a hot shoe) synchronised for electronic flash (indicated by a red X). Cosina made an automatic exposure device which sat on this accessory shoe and connected to the shutter speed dial - this dial has a raised pin to allow the auto exposure accessory device to turn the speed dial, giving the camera aperture priority automatic exposure.

On the left of the pentaprism is the rewind crank. This is the usual fold-out type. The crank pulls up - to the first position to release the cassette in the camera and to the second position to unlock the hinged back. Between the pentaprism humpand the rewind crank is a white painted circle with e white line through it. The Lin represents the position of the film plane.

The front of the camera is fairly plain. most obvious is the lens mount. This is a 42 mm threaded mount - frequently known as the Pentax thread mount. This was the standard lens mount for several decades and so there are a vast number of lenses still available for this camera. The mount takes automatic aperture lenses (as well as older manual aperture lenses). There is a plunger at the base of the lens mount, just inside the thread. When the shutter release is pressed, this plunger moves forward and depresses a pin on the lens to close the aperture to the preset value. This ties in with the TTL light meter (TTL = Through The Lens). You focus and compose with the aperture wide open (and so with a bright image) and as the shutter release is half-way pressed, the aperture closes and the meter reads the light level. You then either adjust the aperture or shutter (or perhaps both) until the centre greed LED in the viewfinder is lit. Pressing the shutter release the rest of the way releases the shutter and takes the picture.

Cosina CSM - lens mount

Next to the lens mount at the bottom is a small chrome button. Pressing this allows the aperture to open again while the shutter release is partially depressed. You might think it easier to just take your finger off the shutter release button but the plunger does not return to its rest position if you do. If you want to re-compose or re-focus, you need this button.

On the right-hand side of the lens mount is a self-timer lever. This is turned through 90 degrees to set the mechanism.It is released by the shutter release in the usual way. On most cameras, These self-timers are clockwork and you can hear them ticking as the lever rotates back to its start position. Not here. This is an electronic device and the lever does not move back. Instead, a small red LED above the lever flashes once a second for ten seconds. After ten seconds, the shutter fires and the lever snaps back.

On the left of the lens mount are what at first glance appear to be two PC (Prontor Compur) sockets. In fact, only the lower one is - it is marked with a red X. This is for attaching an off-camera flash gun by a cable and is synchronised for electronic flash (by the late 1970s, bulb flashes were no longer usual and not catered for). The top connector is not quite the same as a PC connector and is designed for the automatic exposure device I mentioned above. It is marked with a green A.

On either side of the front of the camera are strap lugs - a small but very important feature to me.

The base of the camera has a battery compartment. It takes two LR44 (or SV44) batteries (which are still available). These power the light meter and the electronic shutter. There is also a standard tripod boss - 1/4 inch UNC thread. This is quite seriously offset from the centre of the camera which means the camera is likely to slope when on a tripod, particularly if a cheap tripod is used - this is a cheap camera so I don't supposed anyone would have used an expensive tripod.

Cosina CSM - base plate

Inside the back of the camera there is little to note. The shutter is a horizontally moving cloth shutter - absolutely standard at this time. The take-up spool has eight attachment positions of a fairly standard design so attaching the film leader would be easy enough.

Being Japanese, the camera relies on foam light seals to keep the film compartment light tight. This camera is 35-odd years old and the foam has long turned to sticky dust. The remains will need to be cleaned out and replaced with new foam before the camera can be used. This is a simple enough job, even for me.

Cosina CSM - inside the film chamber

Inside the viewfinder is uncluttered. There is a ground glass focussing screen with a horizontal split-image spot in the centre and around this is a circle of micro-prisms. The split-image centre works by placing it over a suitable vertical edge in the image. This edge will be split - part to the left and part to the right. When you focus the lens, these two parts move and line up with each other when the focus is correct.

In the absence of a suitable vertical edge, you use the micro-prism ring. When the image is unfocussed, this ring has a very granular appearance. As you get nearer to good focus, the granularity gets less and disappears at good focus.

At the top of the viewfinder are three LEDs. The central one is green and the other two are red arrows. While pressing the shutter release halfway, you adjust the aperture/shutter speed combination until the central green LED is lit steadily. The left hand red arrow lights up when you have too much exposure and the right hand arrow lights up when you have too little exposure. Very easy to use in practice.

The supplied lens - the kit lens if you will - is a Cosina made Cosinon lens - 50 mm focal length and maximum aperture of f/1.7 (and why not the industry standard of f/1.8?). The lens is multi-coated as you would expect from the late 1970s. This lens has an aluminium barrel and appears to be very well made.

Cosinon lens with six sided aperture

Cosinon lens - lens barrel

Praktica IV

This is an early SLR from the Democratic Republic of Germany. The early Praktica IV were made in 1959 by KW and then, in 1960, by VEB Pentacon. Production ceased in 1964. There were a number of variations on the model and the camera I have is the second series of the first model - the first ones made by Pentacon. This is exactly the same as the KW cameras except for the name plate on the front of the pentaprism hump.

Praktica IV (C) John Margetts

lens: n/a

focal length:  n/a

apertures: n/a

focus range: n/a

lens fitting: M42 screw mount - automatic aperture variant

shutter: horizontal cloth focal plane

speeds: 1/2 to 1/500 second

flash: 2 off PC connectors

film size: 35 mm

This camera is quite hefty - it weighs 718 g with no lens attached - which is roughly half as much again as most of my SLRs but in line with my other German SLRs: Contax F, Contaflex, Bessamatic.

It measures 150 mm by 100 mm tall and 50 mm thick with no lens attached (no lens came with this camera but as it has a M42 lens mount I have plenty of lenses to fit). While the camera does feel quite heavy, it fits well in my hands.

This is an entirely manual camera so controls are minimal and no battery is required. On the far right of the top plate is the film advance knob. This requires exactly one rotation clockwise to advance the film one frame and to cock the shutter. The centre contains the frame counter which needs to be manually set to zero - it counts upwards. As always, I ignore frame counters and continue to shoot until the film runs out - this means I usually get 26 shots from a 24 exposure cassette.

Next to the film advance knob is a button to release the film advance mechanism to allow the film to be rewound. This needs to be pressed just once at the start of rewinding, not held down all the time which makes rewinding film much easier than with many cameras. In front of this is a black painted triangle which I assume is there to remind you which way to turn the film advance knob. Next along the top plate is the shutter speed selector. 

This is fairly complicated (as many cameras were from this time) as there are two ranges of shutter speeds painted on the selector - in red from 1/2 to 1/10 and in black from 1/25 to 1/500 seconds. To make it more complicated, the black range are not in numerical order. The order is 1/25, B, 1/500, 1/200, 1/100, 1/50 and 1/40 (which is indicated by a lightening flash rather than 1/40 to indicate the flash synchronisation speed). On the top of the selector dial is a second ring to select between the red and black ranges. Around the selector dial is a ring that must be lifted before turning to align the red dot on it to the required shutter speed. When the shutter is fired, this selector dial rotates, as it also does when advancing the film. The manual says that shutter speeds can be selected either before or after advancing the film.

Nearly central on the top plate is the pentaprism hump which is enormous. The large size means that the viewfinder image is both large and bright - a very good thing!

Left of the pentaprism hump is the rewind knob. As is common, this pulls up to allow for insertion and removal of cassettes. This rewind knob is strange in that the top half of it can swivel to one side to turn the knob into a sort of lever - see the photograph - which makes rewinding the film much easier.

Rewind knob  - camera in use

rewind knob - rewinding

In the centre of the rewind knob is a disc which can be set to either film speed (9 DIN/6 ASA to 30 DIN/800 ASA) OR to film type (artificial light colour, daylight colour, artificial light mono, daylight mono).

The bottom plate is rather strange. On one end is a cream disc with a 1/4" Whitworth tripod boss and at the other end is a second film advance, this time a lever. This is the first camera I have ever seen with two film advances. The lower, lever, advance is not as easy to use as a standard top plate lever advance but it is quite usable if you do not like using a knob. With my test film, I found myself using the lever.

In the centre (almost centre, not quite so) of the front is the M42 lens mount. This is shared by both Japanese Pentax cameras, German Praktica cameras and Soviet Zenit cameras so there are a lot of affordable lenses available - Super-Takumar from Japan, Helios-44 from the former Soviet Union and a variety from Germany, not to mention smaller makers. I currently have a 55 mm f/2 Super-Takumar fitted.

Inside the lens mount is a mix of old-fashioned and (for then) modern. The mirror is a non-return one. Once you have fired the shutter, the viewfinder goes black until you advance the film. Also, the focusing screen is plain ground glass with no micro-prisms or split-image centre. On the other hand, it has an automatic aperture plunger so the photograph can be composed with the aperture wide open and then it will close itself when the shutter release is pressed. This is itself rather strange. Under the mirror is a small rivet with a red top. Sliding this to the left engages the automatic aperture plunger and sliding it to the right disengages the plunger for when the plunger would foul a non-automatic lens.

Just below the top late and immediately to the right is the shutter release button. Contrary to later Praktica cameras, this shutter release button is not angled but presses in at right-angles to the front of the camera. This is not ergonomically ideal which is presumably why later Prakticas had the angled release.

On the other side of the lens mount are two PC connectors for flash. Then upper one is for electronic flash and is marked with an "X" embossed in the leatherette. The lower connector is for flash bulbs and is marked with an "F" embossed in the leatherette. These embossings are barely visible but I don't suppose that matters as a user would soon remember which connector to use for their own flash gun.

Under the lens mount is a sturdy chrome leg which allows the camera to be stably placed on a flat surface in lieu of a tripod for long exposures. There is no delay action available on this camera to allow inclusion of the photographer in group photographs..


To open the camera, the back comers completely off. I always find this an awkward way to load film when out-and-about - what do I do with the back while both hands are busy with the film?

Inside the camera is much as 35 mm cameras always have been. there is a central film gate with guides to keep the film in the correct place. When loading the film, you need to turn the take-up spool until the two slots are facing you. The film goes in the left hand slot and pokes through the right hand slot. When the film is advanced, the take-up spool turns to take up the film with the emulsion on the outside.

At first sight, the back of the back is plain but careful inspection will reveal items embossed in the leatherette. Centrally at the top is the Ernemann Tower - the logo for Pentacon. Lower left is then word "Germany" indicating that this was an official import to the UK. It is just "Germany" with no qualification that it came from East Germany.

On the lower right is a rather indistinct triangle with a "1" in it. This was East Germany's quality mark to show that the item is of the first quality. What I cannot find, on the back or elsewhere, is any serial number.

Test film.

I have had my test film developed and it is not good - not good at all. 

There is a serious problem with one of the shutter curtains sticking giving very partial exposures: see below. The width of the image is variable and it looks to me like the first curtain is sticking part away across and is then met by the second curtain.