Beater camera choices: my Promaster 2000 or Pentax K1000?

jay moussy

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I plan on keeping a beater, er.. I mean, a well-loved camera in the car, for the occasional interesting scene, by the roadside.

Choices are:
(both K-mount, all given to me, or found, manual operation)

Promaster 2000 PK, all plastic,

Pentax K1000, partially desilvered finder, but usable

big but light Tamron 28-300 zoom - typical AF manual focus, and very soft, say reviews
or
Square-D 50mm

Which one(s)?
 

Paul Howell

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If the viewfinder on the K1000 is deslivering I would keep the Promaster. The Promaster although all plastic, unless you shoot in really harsh environments or do a lot of travel with risk of knocking it around the Promaster has a fair to a little than better fair build quality. Some were made by Cosina, I think the later ones were made in China. If the zoom is soft I would keep the 50mm and look for short Pentax zoom, either FA or early Zoom to use in manual mode.
 
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jay moussy

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Clarification: I am not getting rid of any two, just looking at the better choice for casual, "beater camera is better than none" car use.

Actually I was thinking of offering the K1000 as a loaner to folks I had good experience with on local CL or Freecycle - nobody took it on yet... silly them!

And no, I am not ready to take my precious (to me) Pentax lenses for that use.
 
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madNbad

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Here in Portland, someone might smash your window just to steal an empty box so I don't leave much of anything in the car. I would go with the Promaster with the zoom. The 50 would work but the zoom will give you more versatility..
 

gone

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I'd use the camera/lens that was the lightest, and fastest to shoot. You might want to take it w/ you outside of the car some time.
 
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jay moussy

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Update on my silly thread:

Square-D lens is actually a 28mm. Not that useful for on-the-road?

Re-discovered, mounted on a faulty MX: Chinar 135mm 2.8. Maybe more like it, or too good for the purpose?

Extra: OM-10 and stock 50mm, on the back shelf.
 

Austintatious

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The promaster is Cosina made. Same as the OM-10 and the Nikon FM-10 as well as a few others. That is what I would use.
 

MattKing

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The OM-10 was made by Olympus.
The much later OM-2000 was the one made by Cosina.
 

Tomwlkr

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Owned several K1000's rugged dependably, made the mistake of selling or giving them to my photograpy students, did some of the best shoot from the hip photography with them. To me the only drawbacks were no self timer and light meter only came on if there was significant light coming thru the lens, a pain in the ass with low light photography
 

Paul Howell

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I have a K1000 stashed way, not a bad camera, a Spotmatic F in K mount, I have not used in years, for all manual I generally pick a Konica T3.
 
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Pioneer

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Chan Tran said:
The K1000 is a camera I can't love.
Click to expand...

Too bad. Fortunately there are lots of options out there.

My K1000 has been my longest owned and most reliable camera. I wouldn't use it for a trunk camera only because it is always getting hauled out and about for some odd project, but I suspect it would work just fine. Occasionally a timer would have been nice but I have somehow always found someone to push the shutter if I wanted to be in the frame. Once in awhile I have considered buying a timer release but I would use it so seldom I doubt I would have it with me when I did need it.
 

Cholentpot

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I own both.

The K1000 is a better camera by far. However both will get you the same results even if the promaster's film advance feel's like your ripping apart an aluminum can.
 

dynachrome

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I have two K1000s but I don't really care for them. The missing self timer doesn't bother me but a camera meant for students should have a depth of field preview feature. Fir this reason, I prefer the KM. I have many of the Cosina type cameras including a number of Promaster 2500PK Supers. They are not half bad but need to be used gently. They do not have the solidity of a Nikkormat or Canon FTb. Other cameras of this type that I have include the Vivitar V4000, Vivitar V4000S, Konica TC-X, Olympus OM2000 and the recently purchased Braun SR
 

dynachrome

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2000. The Braun is similar to the Promaster 2500PK Super but has a Minolta mount. It's my only manual focus Minolta mount camera with a top shutter speed of 1/2000. When I have taken a Cosina type camera on vacation, I would not leave it in my black napsack on the beach. I was afraid it would melt. That honor was reserved for a Nikkormat. It isn't the best idea to keep any camera on a hot car but better a K1000 than any Cosina type camera. I got bumped offline while trying to make this post. Has that been happening to anyone else?
 

Cholentpot

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I can count on one hand the amount of times I've used the DOF preview on any of my cameras. The viewfinder is way too small in general to be able to discern anything.
 

dynachrome

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Even on my medium format SLRs I don't use the DOF preview all the time. Eventually, experience will tell me how much DOF I will have at a given f/stop but the K1000 has been a student camera for a long time and should have the feature for thst reason. I have either three or four overhauled KMs so I would go for one of those first.
 
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