Praktica is a brand of camera manufactured by Pentacon in Dresden in eastern Germany, formerly within the GDR prior to German reunification in 1990. Pentacon is the modern-day successor to Dresden camera firms such as Zeiss Ikon; for many years Dresden was the world's largest producer of cameras. Currently Praktica is the only brand sold by the company; previous brands of the predecessor firms included Zeiss Ikon, Contax (now owned by the Carl Zeiss company), Ica, Ernemann, Exakta, Praktiflex, Pentacon, and many more.
In 1949 Praktica introduced their first SLR. For about one year they were all sold as waist level cameras, with a fixed finder. Although their main priority was Waist Level SLRs for many years to come, some very small series of eye level cameras were produced in between. The first SLR Praktica were simply called Praktica and was fitted with Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50/2.8 M42 mount .
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