Praktica DCZ 4.4 - Review and Ramble

Written: 5.February.2006

Pentacon, the company behind the Praktica brand, was set up in East Germany in 1964, rolling several older companies into a combine. Several of those companies had previously absorbed other companies, and the line can be traced back to 1862. (See Mike's Praktica web site for details.) Pentacon thus has one of the oldest and most illustrious histories in the photographic business. For many years it was one of the world's biggest producers of cameras, and the company and those that were absorbed into it made advances in camera design that are now used by all SLR designs.

This started with the world's first mass-produced SLR, the Kine-Exakta in 1936.

Other firsts included:

(As an aside, Zeiss Ikon (later to become part of Pentacon) came up with the name 'Pentax' and sold it to Asahi Optical in 1954. It was originally derived from 'PENTaprism' and 'contAX.' Apparently 'Pentacon' came from 'PENTAprism' and 'CONtax'.)

However, Praktica gradually dropped behind technologically, and could not keep up with the Japanese companies. Their most advanced camera, the BX-20s, was an SLR with aperture priority and manual exposure, DX film speed setting and TTL flash control - but they never made an SLR with programmed exposure. I believe that all of their zoom lenses were made for them by Sigma and later Samyang.

When East and West Germany were reunited and the company was exposed more fully to market competition they were no longer able to continue production of cameras in Germany.

The Praktica brand is no longer sold in Australia (where I live). I bought my DCZ 4.4 while on holiday in Turkey. It was quite popular there, and a major selling point seemed to be that it had "Türkçe Menü". (I suppose this implies that many cameras don't. So if you read Turkish, there's a point in its favour.) Before buying I checked that it also had English menus! There is also a DCZ 5.4, which has the same body shell but with a 5 megapixel sensor.

To be honest, I didn't actually need another camera. I bought this one because of fondness for the brand, because I was on holiday and spending money, and because I LOVE the styling. I sometimes just sit there looking at it and holding it.

The Praktica web site and promotional material says "PRAKTICA - from Germany". The company may be German, but I'm guessing that they are trying to trick you into thinking that the cameras are too. While the brand still exists, it is as a marketer of digital cameras made by OEM/ODM manufacturers in Taiwan and China.
In Turkey I even saw some shops which had Prakticas sitting next to cameras which were identical but for the brand.
For some specific examples, the Praktica Luxmedia 5008 appears to be the Tekom AX581 (also available as the Megxon C580 and in silver as the Yakumo Mega-Image 85 D); the Luxmedia 4008 the Tekom AX480 (also available as the Megxon C480); the Luxmedia 5103 the Concord Eye-Q 5345z (and Steve's Digicams states ""The Concord Eye-Q 5345z is an OEM version of the Casio QV-R51" though with a smaller screen); the Luxmedia 5203 the Orite vc-8025z and the Luxmedia 5303 appears to be the DXG-528 (see the DXG USA website)
The DCZ 4.4 is also available as the Vivitar 3845, and the DCZ 5.4 as the Vivitar 3950. The DCZ 4.4 and DCZ 5.4 would appear to be made by Silicon Valley Peripherals, whose headquarters is in California - but I'd assume that their factory is in China. Specifically, the DCZ 5.4 is the SVP CDC-7530.

Many of the cameras from Taiwanese OEM / ODM makers are of a lesser standard than those of the major camera makers - but not always, as these Taiwanese companies do also make cameras for the big brands. Hewlett-Packard, Kodak, Samsung and Minolta specifically, and others too I'm sure. As specific examples, I understand that the Minolta Dimage 2330 was built for them by Skanhex, and the Konica Minolta Dimage E40 by Premier
(There's a bit of discussion on this over at DPReview)
So I'm not going to dismiss Praktica cameras just because of their origin.

How well does the DCZ 4.4 work?

Most of the time, very well. Pictures in general were sharp, well exposed and with good colour.

At 2 inches the LCD screen is larger than average. The screen can be set to display all icons or less icons, or can be turned off. This last option is very strange since the camera has no optical viewfinder.

Photographic options include:

  • Picture size - 5 options, including an interpolated 6 megapixels,
  • Compression level (AKA 'quality') - 3 options,
  • Metering - 'multi' or spot (although there is no indication on screen of the size of the spot)
  • Exposure compensation, +/-2EV, in 0.5EV steps.
  • Sharpness - 3 options.
  • Selectable white balance, including the ability to set a custom white balance.
  • Besides colour, you can set black & white or sepia images.
  • Macro mode allows focus down to 5cm at the 'wide' lens setting, and 39cm at 'tele'.

There are some omissions that I find annoying. I prefer the shutter speed to be shown, this camera doesn't show it. Film speed cannot be selected, 'auto' is all you have. (And the manual does not even list what the auto range is.) 'Advanced functionality' includes Tetris, Snake and two other games, and a selection of frames to put around images (eg one with a "Happy Birthday!" message.) I'd much rather have control of film speed, and a display of shutter speeds. I should emphasize though, that this is a personal preference rather than a defect of the camera. Many people just want to press a button and take a good picture, and would find shutter speeds to be confusing and an un-necessary clutter on the screen. I guess they are the target market for the DCZ 4.4

Movie mode is very good, with 2 options each for size and frame rate. The best is 640x480 at 24fps. Sound is recorded, and it can record up to the capacity of the card. This is better than many budget cameras. The Olympus FE-100 for example can only manage 320x240 at 15fps without sound.

On the negative side, zooming in on an image in playback is a little slow.

Other features include:

  • a TV out connection
  • DPOF
  • Pictbridge
  • Voice memos can be attached to photos
  • can function as a voice recorder, up to the capacity of the memory card.

However, there is one area of concern, and that is that focussing is not the best in low light. Not anything truly murky mind you, but ordinary room light. And not a grey wall on the far side of the room, but sometimes objects just one metre away. The manual says that when the shutter is pressed the AF frame will change from white to red (indicating that the camera is doing 'focus adjustment') to green (indicating that the camera is ready to take a photo). I found that under ordinary room light the AF frame would often stay red, and a green LED next to the LCD screen would blink rapidly. I assume that this means that the camera cannot find correct focus - although the manual does not explain this. This is particularly disappointing considering that the camera has an orange AF assist LED. I noticed that under this condition the AF assist LED would flash very briefly. If it shone for half a second then you knew that the focus frame would very shortly go green, but often it flashed very briefly and the focus frame turned red and stayed red.


A friend has a Sony with an orange AF assist LED, and that was an interesting comparison. The Sony's LED would go on and stay on, until it found focus. Sometimes this was under quite murky conditions (for example the featureless fabric of a chair pushed under the shade of a table), and it took two or more seconds, but it usually found focus in the end.
I don't know why the Praktica one flashes and gives up. I'll speculate that it is very low powered, and it flashes first to determine if it's going to reflect back enough light to be of any use. And often it isn't.
Or maybe my camera is defective.

Curiously though, photos under these conditions were fairly often pretty well focussed. I'll speculate that when the camera can't find focus, it sets focus at a distance that many photos are taken (hmm... say, just under 2 metres?). And the wide depth of field that all digicams have helps too. But photos of close objects were out of focus.

Anyway, if you're looking at it in a shop, make sure you point it towards the back of the shop and see how it performs in room lighting.

[7.February.2006 I've tried the AF a bit more. In my rooms lit by a 75 watt bulb, focus is generally OK. In rooms lit by a 60 watt bulb, it often struggled]

In daylight the focus is pleasingly quick.

In summary: generally a good, competent camera, capable of producing sharp, well exposed photos, and better than other cameras in some areas. My only real concern is focus in low light.

But it just looks soooo lovely.

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