Praktica woes

 I took my old heavy Praktica MTL 3 to Tasmania and it worked perfectly.

However, when I used it last Sunday to photograph an old wooden church, I noticed that the image in the view finder was on an angle.

To try and capture the effect I took a not particularly good mobile phone picture  looking through the viewfinder at some venetian blinds. If you look at the angle of blinds in the view finder compared to the actual blind in the background, you can see that the viewfinder image has developed a bit of a slant, which is a trifle disconcerting.

In film SLR cameras, the light is reflected from a mirror through a clever prism system into the viewfinder. In Praktica cameras the prism is typically held in place against a little bit of shock foam by a spring.

I'm guessing, and it is only a guess, that the shock foam has stopped doing its job properly and the prism has moved slightly out of alignment due to vibration on the journey back from Tasmania.

Given that the camera body only cost me forty dollars - it's the reconditioned lens that's the pricy bit - and I have two other old Praktica bodies compatible with the lens, the answer probably is that the MTL-3 ends up in a display cabinet.

Sadly, it's probably not worth repairing ...