A new film camera has been released bearing the famous East German Praktica brand – but it’s very different to the old-school metal SLRs that once bore the name.
Shops in the UK have begun selling a new simple reusable compact camera with Praktica branding in recent months.
Called the Praktica VF212, the camera is broadly similar to a rash of simple plastic compacts that have appeared in the last decade or so as millennials and Gen Z flock to film.
The camera is showing up in high-street UK retailers such as Curry’s, Boots and Maplin’s.
The VF212 is available in either black or cream, and features a fixed aperture of between f/9 and f/11, a built-in flash and manual film advance and rewind.
The VF212 appears to be typically selling for around £19.99 in the UK.
“Meet your new favourite film companion – the Praktica Reusable 35mm Film Camera. Designed for everyday adventures, this easy-to-use camera brings back the charm of analogue photography with the freedom to reload and shoot again and again,” a listing for the camera on UK pharmacy chain Boots said.
It is not the first film camera in recent years to appear under the Praktica banner.
Kosmo Foto reported in 2024 that a disposable compact under the Praktica name was also being sold in UK high-street store. Called the Luxmedia, the camera came loaded with a roll of 400-ISO colour film. The VF212 requires you to buy film separately.
The camera is, of course, not made in Germany – like the many other simple reusable compacts, it’s a basic China-made model.
It is 25 years since VEB Pentacon – one of the biggest camera makers in East Germany during the Cold War – produced its last German-made Praktica film SLR, the BX20s. The Praktica name, however, lived on with a variety of cheap film and digital models made in Asia during the 2000s and 2010s.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
