Film Fridays: The Space Age-looking East German autofocus SLR that nearly was

An early engineering model of the autofocus-capable Praktica BY60.Photo: Praktica Collector During much of the Cold War, Praktica-brand cameras - manufactured in the East German city of Dresden by camera conglomerate Pentacon - were ubiquitous among Soviet photography enthusiasts and budget-conscious western hobbyists. But as the 1980's rolled around, one key feature that Prakticas noticeably lacked was autofocus. All that was set to change by the late 1980's, with the planned introduction of th...