Pentacon is the company name of a camera manufacturer inDresden,Germany.

Pentacon

Industry	Imaging
Founded	Dresden, Germany 1964; 61 years ago (1964)
Headquarters	Dresden, Germany
Products	cameras and other optical equipment
Website	http://pentacon.de

The name Pentacon is derived from the brandContax ofZeiss Ikon Kamerawerke in Dresden andPentagon, as a Pentaprism forSingle-Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras was for the first time developed in Dresden. Thecross section of this prism has a pentagonal shape.Pentacon is best known for producing the SLR cameras of thePraktica-series as well as themedium format cameraPentacon Six, the Pentacon Super and various cameras of the Exa series.

Pentacon also producedslide projectors.

In 1959 several Dresden camera manufacturers, among them VEB Kamerawerke Freital, were joined to createVolkseigener Betrieb Kamera- und Kinowerke Dresden, which was renamed in 1964 to VEB Pentacon Dresden. In 1968, VEB Feinoptisches Werk Görlitz was integrated into VEB Pentacon. Accordingly, the formerMeyer-Optik Görlitz lenses were now renamed to ”Pentacon“ .

After German reunification in 1990 Pentacon, as with most East German companies, came to be possessed by theTreuhandanstalt (the federal board concerned with the privatisation of East German companies) and was selected for closure instead of sale. It was deemed that company was grossly inefficient, employing six thousand staff when it could have sufficed with one thousand, and selling its cameras at a loss. Liquidation began on October 2, 1990 (one day before official reunification), and production ceased on June 30, 1991. By then it had shed nearly three thousand employees to retain a total of 3331 - the next day all but 232 were laid off.

Investor Heinrich Manderman, who had previously been involved in resurrecting lensmakerSchneider Kreuznach, purchased the rights to the Pentacon brands and several portions of its assets, including the former military production building in Dresden. The company was re-established as Pentacon GmbH, a member of the Jos. Schneider group.

Production of cameras and lenses continues, but is now outsourced to South Korea.

Other parts of the former Pentacon company was sold to Noble and today belong to Kamera Werk Dresden, which, among other products, manufacturepanoramic cameras under the Noblex brand, and cameras for industrial use under the Loglux brand.

Pentacon also producesscanner cameras. The latest model, the Scan 7000, was introduced at thephotokina 2010 in Cologne, Germany. The Scan 7000 is operated withSilverFast and has a resolution of 20.000 × 20.000 pixels.

•   Media related toPentacon at Wikimedia Commons
• Pentacon GmbH
• Jos. Schneider Optische Werke
• Bildtonmaschine "Dresden" des VEB aus dem Staatsratsgebäude