Praktica was a brand of camera manufactured by Pentacon in Dresden in eastern Germany, within the GDR between 1949 and the German reunification in 1990.

Pentacon is a Dresden-based company in the optical and precision engineering industry, which was at times a major manufacturer of photo cameras.

The name Pentacon is derived on the one hand from the Contax brand of the Dresden Zeiss Ikon Kamerawerke and Pentagon (Greek for pentagon), because a pentaprism for SLR cameras developed for the first time in Dresden has this shape in cross section.

They currently produce both budget lenses (mostly small, not very durable, and having manual focus, but good in optical quality) and higher priced products [citation needed].

[citation needed] In 2001, the production of Praktica Analogue SLR cameras was discontinued with the focus shifting to a range of Praktica digital compact cameras and camcorders together with an extensive range of binoculars, spotting scopes, accessories and other optical imaging products.