KW Pentacon FB1957

History

The Dresden camera industry of the 1950s was producing SLRs under several related brand names, with KW operating factories that had produced the Praktiflex and then Praktica lines since the late 1940s. The Pentacon name was introduced in the mid-1950s as KW sought to differentiate a higher-specification or more commercially positioned body from the Praktica range.

The Pentacon FB, introduced around 1957, coincided with a pivotal moment in SLR development worldwide: the Asahi Pentax had appeared the same year, and Western manufacturers including Voigtländer were moving toward eye-level-only designs. The FB gave the Dresden industry a product that could be positioned against these competitors, at least on configuration if not on metering capability.

The broader context is the East German industrial reorganisation of this period. KW and other Dresden optical works were progressively nationalised through the 1950s, eventually consolidating under the VEB Pentacon umbrella. The Pentacon FB thus represents the KW-branded output immediately before this structural shift; subsequent Pentacon models bore the VEB designation.

The FB was followed by the Pentacon F and later the Pentacon FBM, the latter adding a built-in exposure meter coupled to the shutter speed dial.

Why It Matters

The Pentacon FB is significant as the founding member of a camera family that remained in production, in various forms, through the 1970s. The Pentacon name became well-known in Western Europe, where these cameras were sold through a network of import distributors, and it established Dresden SLRs as legitimate competitors in the eye-level market at the precise moment that form factor was becoming the international norm.

The camera also helped establish M42 as the de facto mount standard for the East German industry. By committing to M42 in both the Pentacon and Praktica lines, KW (and later VEB Pentacon) ensured lens compatibility across their entire output and, fortuitously, with the Asahi Spotmatic and other Japanese M42 bodies -- creating a lens ecosystem that remained commercially and practically significant well into the 1990s.

For historians of Cold War industrial design, the Pentacon FB illustrates how the GDR's optical industry -- drawing on pre-war Zeiss and Ihagee expertise concentrated in Dresden -- was capable of genuine technical parity with Western counterparts in the late 1950s, even within the constraints of a planned economy.

Lenses & Accessories

The Pentacon FB accepts all M42-mount lenses. Lenses available at or near the time of production include:

• Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50/2.8 - the standard kit lens of the period; sharp from f/5.6
• Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58/2 - faster standard option with a distinctive pre-war optical design
• Meyer-Optik Görlitz Primotar 50/3.5 - budget standard lens
• Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35/2.8 - wide-angle option
• Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135/3.5 - telephoto option for the period

The M42 mount's universality means the Pentacon FB can also accept later lenses from Asahi, Fujinon, Mamiya, Helios, and numerous other M42 producers.

Sample Photographers / Notable Use

• Used by East German amateur and professional photographers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in a domestic market largely closed to Western imports.
• Exported to Western Europe under the Pentacon name and, in some markets, under distributor rebadges; part of the GDR's foreign-currency export programme for precision goods.
• Regarded today as the founding body of the Pentacon family and a collector milestone within the Dresden camera canon.

References

• Camera-Wiki: Pentacon F - covers the Pentacon F family history including the FB predecessor and subsequent model variants