Opema II and Belar 45/3.5
Picture by Fleury.
The Opema was a 24x32mm camera made by the Czech company Meopta in the 1950s. It had a focal-plane shutter with speeds B, 25–500 and interchangeable lenses, and existed in two versions.
The Opema I has a viewfinder only, and the Opema II has a coupled rangefinder combined with the viewfinder.
The lens mount is a 38mm diameter screw mount that may look the same as the 39mm Leica screw mount but is crucially different and unique to the Opema. Attempting to mate a 39mm screw lens with an Opema (or a Meopta lens with a Leica or other screw-mount body) risks stripping one or both threads. This does not stop some would-be sellers from misdescribing Meopta lenses as "Leica mount", whether unscrupulously or (more likely) out of simple ignorance.
The lenses designed for the Opema include:
- 30/6.8 Largor (not rangefinder-coupled)
- 45/2 Openar collapsible
- 45/2.8 Belar collapsible
- 45/3.5 Belar collapsible
- 90/4.5 Tele-Mirar
- 135/4.5 Tele-Mirar
- 180/6 Telex (not rangefinder-coupled)
All the bodies and lenses were in chrome finish. All the lenses other than the 45mm were sold with a dedicated accessory finder.
An Opema I was sold at Westlicht Auction 29/5/2004 with a Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 6cm f/1.5 lens with no engraving, adapted by Meopta for the Opema mount.
Links
In English:
- Opema and Opema II at Ian Norris's Leica Copy website
- Flickr pictures tagged Opema
In Japanese:
- Opema no sekai first of a series of seven pages on the Opema and its lenses (follow the "Next" links); it is well illustrated with pictures of the whole range of lenses
- Opema II at Samsul's Jakarta Shitamachi Sansakki website
- Opema II and sample pictures with the Openar 45/2, at t-oku.com (The photographer is not impressed.)
- Opema II repair notes and sample photos with the Belar 45/3.5, at Takasaki Motohiro's camera site
- Opema II repair notes and sample photos with the Belar 45/2.8, at the Handmade and Classic Camera site
In Chinese:
- Brief description in Chinese
In french:
- Opema on www.collection-appareils.fr by Sylvain Halgand