Praktica relives its analog film photography past - but its new budget camera is not a 35mm SLR
(Image credit: Praktica)
News that a new Praktica film camera is on sale may well sound like an April Fool's joke—particularly if you were hoping for a revival of a classic Praktica reflex. But it is true—there is a new Praktica camera—and it does shoot 35mm film.
Sadly, however, it is not a remake of one of the all-metal single-lens reflex cameras that so many of us remember from the 1970s and 80s. For a whole generation of photographers, Praktica SLRs were the budget-priced route into interchangeable-lens picture taking.
Based in Dresden in East Germany, the Praktica factory was closed when Germany reunified, following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. You still see the Praktica name on some low-cost digital cameras, but the analog heritage was understandably abandoned – until now.
The new Praktica camera is highly affordable—but that's because it is a disposable camera that comes preloaded with film. The Praktica Luxmedia comes with 27 exposures to color negative film and has a built-in manually operated flash, powered by a supplied battery.
Praktica disposable camera promotional camera shows clearly that its 35mm color print film is made in the USA (Image credit: Praktica)
We don't know for certain what film the new Praktica uses - but the ISO400 emulsion from what we have seen from the marketing images is made in the USA, which means that the color print film is almost certainly sourced from Kodak.
So far, we have mainly only seen the camera on sale in the UK - but as its stockists include Amazon, it may well yet appear in a wider number of countries.
You can buy a single camera on its own for around £19.99, or get a bulk-buy discount by choosing a twin- or triple-pack costing around £35.99 and £49.99 respectively.
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Chris George has worked on Digital Camera World since its launch in 2017. He has been writing about photography, mobile phones, video making and technology for over 30 years – and has edited numerous magazines including PhotoPlus, N-Photo, Digital Camera, Video Camera, and Professional Photography.
His first serious camera was the iconic Olympus OM10, with which he won the title of Young Photographer of the Year - long before the advent of autofocus and memory cards. Today he uses a Nikon D800, a Fujifilm X-T1, a Sony A7, and his iPhone 15 Pro Max.
He has written about technology for countless publications and websites including The Sunday Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, Dorling Kindersley, What Cellphone, T3 and Techradar.
