I've been cleaning up the Meopta Flexaret III. I was a little dissapointed when I first saw it but it's grown on me. This was my three TLR order where the Minolta Autocord was trashed and I got a refund. It included a Welta Reflekta which was thrown in with the Autocord considering the very low value of the Welta but it has such a neat name! The Flexaret is pretty nice for a camera made from 1948 to 1950, with it's Art Deco styling.

This one has the Meopta Mirar 80mm f3.5 lens which is a Cooke Triplet and not a four element Tessar design as is the later Meopta Belars. I hope it's sharp enough, although one of my reasons for a TLR is for portraits and blazing sharp may not be a plus. At least I hope it's better than the Pearl River. The glass is pretty clean and cleaning up the mirror and the ground glass really improved the focusing. I tested the Prontor shutter and it is consistently 2/3 of a stop slow which I can deal with. It came with a neat lens shade and a set of filters.

It's uses a crank advance which apparently isn't too reliable. It seems fine — the film advances but we will see if advances correctly. There is always the red window.

The filters were the clincher. If nothing else I will be able to see what the different filters do for black and white for a cost of $30.50. I still need a green filter for portraits so I looked at Cupog's on eBay. He's from Slovakia and often has the Flexarets. He has an excellent reputation, too. Not only does he have a filter set but also a Flexaret Va with the better Tessar lens. I'm starting to forget the Minolta.