This was another case of me acquiring an East German camera on a something of a whim! (The low price had something to do with it!) This time, it was a Praktica MTL5 which was sold with the standard Pentacon 50mm F1.8 lens, a Pentacon 29mm F2.8 lens and a Peak 135mm F2 lens along with an original carrying case. Before anyone asks, yes, the wide angle lens is 29mm not 28mm as is usual and no, I have never heard of Peak as a lens manufacturer. The seller thought that it might be a badged Hanimar lens. More on that later.
The MTL5 was produced between March 1983 to November 1985 by Pentacon, Dresden. My first impressions of the camera body is that it is robust and would have probably been a vast improvement over my first SLR – a Zenit E if for no other reason than it has through the lens TTL-metering using stopped-down metering controlled by a lever above the shutter release. The shutter release is worth mentioning as it is on the front of the camera as opposed to being on the top plate. It is remarkably comfortable to use but then I am used to this arrangement on my Kiev 60.
The shutter is a mechanically controlled vertical-moving metal-blade focal plane shutter which again is an improvement on my old Zenit’s cloth shutter. Shutter speeds are a perfectly acceptable 1 second to 1/1000 second and B.
The viewfinder is bright and incorporates a split-image range finder as focusing screen. A built-in shutter speed meter with (+/-) symbols is visible in the viewfinder. To use this feature, you either first choose whether to first set the aperture or the shutter speed and alter either the aperture or the shutter speed until the displayed needle is midway between the + and -. Of course, the film speed must first be set using the dial on the top plate.
Unlike the Werra mentioned in my previous post, I have run a test roll of film through this camera.
At this point I think that I should briefly comment upon the three lenses available to me. I will be succinct! I will start with the 50mm and 29mm Pentacon lenses. On the downside, they are not the sharpest of lenses. They do give something of a vintage feel to images. On the positive side ,,, they are very cheap to purchase! I say no more.
The Peak 135mm lens was found to be a disaster! First, I could not get it to focus to infinity. I attempted a bit of surgery on it at the roadside. I found that there was something at the rear of the lens that was loose and prevented the barrel from moving. I poked it out of the way and set the lens to infinity. I took one shot with it and subsequently decided that it will be consigned to the bin! (I may take a further look inside though.)
I was so impressed with this camera that I immediately decided to source a suitable replacement for the Peak 135mm lens. It will be a Soviet made Jupiter 37-AM! I expect it in a couple of days! 
I found the shooting experience very pleasant. The metering seems accurate and it took me a short time to finish the roll of film in Old Peritheia along with a couple of shots of the derelict olive press in Loutses on my way home.
For those that might be interested, the attached images were shot on TMax 100 film I used a yellow filter on the 50mm lens. I could have developed the film in TMax developer but given the lens’s reputation for not being the sharpest, I developed it in Spur HRX due to it’s alleged sharpening. I wasn’t disappointed with the results.
The images were scanned on an Epson V600. Limited post processing was done in DxO PhotoLabs 4.
