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November 9, 2014

Altix V
[German version]
Lens

interchangeable (Altix bayonet mount); in this case: Carl Zeiss Jena

Tessar 50 mm f/2.8, 35.5mm filter thread

Shutter

Tempor leaf shutter (there also were models with Cludor shutter);
Speeds: B, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250; self timer.

Focusing

Scale focusing, 2 ft./0,6 m to infinity

Viewfinder

small inversed galilean, no framelines

Flash

PC socket

Film
transport

removable bottom, back door. Thumb wheels for advance and rewind.

Dimensions

115/70/50mm (without lens)

This camera was sold in 1956 at HO-Warenhaus ("Handels-Organisation", national shops of

GDR) for 290 Mark, which must have been a lot of money in those years. I bought it for
EUR 22,50 in February 2002 and it looked like new (save for a major filter ring ding). It
was accompanied both times by a Carl Zeiss Jena 50/2.8 Tessar lens and a selenium light
meter of the "Iris" brand.
The Altix is an East German VF camera with interchangeable lenses, I heard of 35, 50, and
90 mm lenses by Meyer-Optik, Grlitz. There was also a "universal finder" with
interchangeable masks for each focal length (well, 35 mm is the unmasked finder). The
Altix company was incorporated into the Pentacon Kombinat towards the end of the 1950s.
The Zeiss lens is sharp, distortion-free and has a kind of smooth and subtle colour
rendering I happen to like a lot. Close focus 2 feet!
There is no built in light meter. The camera came with a seleneium hand held meter that
still is working properly. The scale was missing, but I just had to xerox the scale from the
manual where it was printed 1:1 and glue it onto the meter. Easy job.
Unfortunately there is no rangefinder, so you have to stick with guess-focusing which is not
too reliable (in my case at least). I imagine a coupled RF would have been hard to integrate
because of the camera's construction with the leaf shutter behind the lens.
Mechanics and workmaship are flawless. It is important to note that the film transport
sprockets engage a double exposure lock, so it is not possible to release the shutter without
a film in the camera (unless you turn the sprocket wheel manually). The right way: load
film, wind, cock shutter with separate lever on lens barrel, set shutter speed, shoot. It took
me a little time to findout, you can easily get to think the camera is kaputt.
The self timer is activated by moving the shutter cocking lever a little further. To that end,
you have to press an unlock button beside the lens mount. The color of this button (chrome
with red dot vs. grey plastic) seems to be rather important to collectors. On the other side
of the lens mount you see the PC socket.
The camera is really small, the body being only slightly larger than a Konica C35. The lens

is quite big in relation, so it is hard to get a good grip on the camera. I very much like the
handsome design of this camera, with its symmetrical layout of controls and its beautiful
finish. This is a fine optical instrument, not a workhorse.
Film is loaded by a removable bottom plate and a hinged back door, pretty much Leica Mish (same period, too). When the roll is finished, pull out the wind thumbwheel and rewind
the film with the rewind thumbwheel. Then open the camera, take the film out and look for
the take-up spool which will inevitably have fallen out of the camera. Thumbwheel advance
and rewind are not everybody's darling, but on the Altix the thumbwheels are quite
ergonomic and pleasant to use.
Finder is small, dim and almost useless for glasses wearers. I tried a Pentacon universal
finder, but its parallax compensation was misaligned which resulted in the main subject
being somewhere on the edge of the negative. I think I managed to readjust it finally, but
nowadays I prefer a KMZ turret finder.
Altix' were also produced for square 24/24 mm frame format on standard 135 film. See
external links for details. The successors of the V were the N without and the NB with an
internal light meter, but they have a more conventional design (like the Kodak Retinette or
similar cameras). Lens mount seems to be the same.
Copyright 2002-2010 by Erik FissErik Fiss. All rights reserved.
Last modified March 16, 2010

http://erikfiss.com/foto/cams/altix/e.html November 9, 2014