What is the cheapest used Pentacon FM in the UK?

The cheapest used Pentacon FM currently listed is £11.45 at eBay, based on 7 listings compared across 1 UK retailers.

How many used Pentacon FM are for sale in the UK?

There are currently 7 used Pentacon FM listings available across 1 UK retailers on UsedLens, updated daily.

Used Pentacon FM for Sale — From £11

£11.45 Low price

£249.99 High price

7 Listings

1 Retailers

1 New this week

2 Reduced

Great for: general student collector

Pentacon's late-50s Dresden M42 SLR — the FM, cloth shutter, fully mechanical, 1957.

The Pentacon FM is a 35mm film SLR made in Dresden, East Germany, in the late 1950s, part of the early Pentacon line that descended from the pioneering Contax S pentaprism SLR built in the same city. It was an early fixed-prism M42 body from the period when Dresden was establishing the eye-level SLR, and carries clear historical significance in the development of the type.

It is an M42 screw-mount SLR with a horizontal-travel cloth focal-plane shutter offering speeds up to around 1/1000 plus B on the FM, which added a slow-speed range compared with the plainer F. It has a fixed pentaprism finder and no built-in meter, so exposure is set fully manually. The shutter is mechanically timed and works entirely without a battery.

The FM suits collectors and users interested in early Dresden SLR history, or those wanting a simple, battery-free mechanical M42 body to shoot with a handheld meter. Handling reflects late-1950s design, more basic than later cameras, and it runs on the large M42 lens pool; the lack of a meter and the age-related fragility are the practical limitations.

On the used market these are old cameras, so mechanical condition matters most: run the cloth shutter across all speeds watching for capping, pinholes, a sticky curtain or inaccurate slow speeds, which are common on bodies of this age. Inspect any light seals and dampers for perishing or hardening, check the prism for desilvering or haze, and test the film advance and rewind carefully. With no meter to assess, prioritise shutter accuracy and general mechanical soundness.