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Specification

Manufacturer description #1

A Single-lens 35mm. Reflex Camera with built-in Prismatic Telescope Finder

• interchangeable lenses with focal lengths ranging from 35 mm. to 500 mm. with automatic diaphragm, or pre-set diaphragm,
• focal-plane shutter calibrated in speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 second and B for any desired length of time,
• synchronized flash contact for electronic and flash-bulb units,
• image field lens,
• cartridge-to-cartridge film wind,
• self-timing release with delayed action variable up to approximately 10 seconds,
• film-speed indicator -

the camera adaptable to every photographic task!

HANDSOME IN SHAPE

ELEGANT IN APPEARANCE

STURDY IN BUILD

EASY TO HANDLE

Manufacturer description #2

The Pentacon F is a one-lens reflex camera yielding pictures 24 X 36 mm (1 X 1 1/2") in size, which, owing to its prismatic telescope-finder can be used for photographing from eye-level. When viewed through the pentagonal roof-shaped prism, the finder image appears upright, correct-sided and, with the standard lens with automatic diaphragm in the camera, in the natural size of the picture. The compact build of the prismatic telescope-finder facilitates selecting and focusing the image. The image fields lens, arranged within the light beam of the finder, assures a ground-glass image of corner-to-corner brilliance. Besides, the Pentacon F possesses all the advantages of a modern precision miniature camera, such as focal-plane shutter, calibrated in speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 second, coupled shutter winder and film advancement, lock against double exposures, interchangeability of lenses, automatic diaphragm release, synchronized flash contact, and built-in self-release with delayed action.

The Pentacon F takes the ordinary daylight film cartridge for 36 exposures, all other standard miniature film fillings and 35 mm perforated film in cut lengths up to 1.60 meter (5'4").

From the monograph "The CONTAX S camera family" (1991) by Peter Dechert

Essentially a Contax D in other respects, it incorporates an interior semi-circular lens stop-down automation plate built into the bottom of its lensmount throat. A plate in the camera throat is needed, instead of a smaller tab, pin, or lever, because the lenses to be used are in thread mounts and from a variety of manufacturers: their exact position when screwed into the camera's flange cannot always be precisely determined, nor will it always be maintained after heavy use.

After the shutter release is pressed, two actions instead of one take place in the time that elapses before the shutter opens. The mirror is unlocked and begins to spring up out of the way so that light from the lens can reach the film plane unimpeded. The second event is simply that the hinged automation plate rises from its rest position, down near the floor of the shutter crate, to an essentially vertical one.

Here it strikes and depresses a pin that protrudes backward from near the bottom of the face of the rear flange of the lens that is screwed into the camera's mount. Pressure on the pin, in turn, releases a lock that had restrained a spring within the lensmount. Unlocked, the spring contracts, pulling with it a lever which closes the lens aperture to whatever value the photographer has preset on the f-stop ring. Thus the photographer can focus at the brightest lens aperture; when he makes the photograph, the diaphragm of the lens in use closes down semi-automatically.

The action is semi-automatic because, between exposures, the photographer has to move a tab or ring in order to retension the spring and reset the lock; diaphragms of the lenses made during the Contax F's lifetime did not reopen automatically after exposure was made. This fact did not matter so much in those days, of course, because the Contax's mirror did not return to viewing position until after the camera was wound, and the context of the area that had been photographed was obscured from the camera's eyepiece anyway after the exposure's completion.

This diaphragm arrangement worked exactly in the style that came more commonly to be associated with the Asahi Pentax camera in the minds of most photographers. But the first Pentax with an automatic diaphragm was introduced about a year later than the Contax F, and it is apparent that Japanese engineers borrowed this mechanical improvement from the East Germans.

As incorporated into the Contax F, the semi-automatic system was an immediate major improvement over the external automation system that had earlier become available for some Exakta and other mount lenses, because the stopping-down action could be coupled much more closely with the exposure sequence itself.

From the editor

Along with the Praktica FX 2, released in the same year 1956, it was the world's first 35mm SLR camera with internal automatic aperture stop-down but without instant-return mirror.

33,895 units were produced from September 1956 to June 1961.

The export version was sold under the name "Pentacon F".

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