C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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The Meopta Flexaret is a twin-lens reflex camera producing 6x6cm negatives on 120 roll film, manufactured by Meopta in Prerov, Czechoslovakia. The first model appeared around 1949, establishing a line that would continue through several variants into the 1970s -- making it one of the longest-running TLR families produced outside of Japan or West Germany.
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C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
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Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
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About this camera
A Czech-made 6x6 TLR from the late 1940s, built around a Belar 80mm f/3.5 taking lens.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 120 film, 6x6cm (12 exposures) |
| Mount | Fixed |
| Taking lens | Belar 80mm f/3.5 |
| Viewing lens | Belar 80mm f/3.5 |
| Year introduced | 1949 |
| Shutter | Leaf: ~1s - 1/300s + B |
| Flash sync | ~ |
| Meter | None |
| Film advance | Side knob, red-window frame count |
| Viewfinder | Waist-level, ground glass + sports finder |
| Battery | None |
Meopta was founded in Prerov in 1933 as Optikotechna, producing optical instruments and projectors. After the Second World War, the company was nationalised and reorganised under the name Meopta within the Czechoslovak state enterprise system. Camera production expanded significantly in the late 1940s as the government sought to develop domestic photographic manufacturing.
The Flexaret was the company's answer to the popular medium-format TLR segment. Where East German factories such as Welta-Werk and VEB Kamera-Werk Freital leaned on Meyer-Optik glass, Meopta developed its own optical formulas internally -- the Belar triplet being the most widely used on the Flexaret line.
The camera evolved through a series of numbered variants: Flexaret II, III, IV, V, VI, and finally the Flexaret VII (the most refined, produced into the 1970s), each adding incremental refinements such as improved film transport, a coupled film-advance and shutter-cocking mechanism, and on later models an accessory shoe.
The Flexaret line represents Czechoslovakia's most sustained effort in medium-format camera design. Unlike many state-enterprise camera projects that produced single models for short runs, Meopta continued developing the Flexaret over more than two decades, accumulating meaningful manufacturing experience and optical refinement.
The Belar 80mm f/3.5 is a competent triplet in the tradition of the Tessar: modest wide open, considerably improved stopped down to f/8 or f/11. Later Flexaret variants received a coated version of the lens, distinguishable by the coating notation on the front ring, which improves flare resistance noticeably.
For collectors, the Flexaret I and early variants are the rarer finds; the Flexaret VI and VII are the most common and the most capable. The entire line has attracted attention among Eastern European photography historians as evidence of a viable alternative to West German or Japanese production under socialist economic conditions.
C41
Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
View profile →Meopta Flexaret
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