Harmless, easy and quick survey for long time film users

[blockend]

Spotmatic was the camera enthusiasts aspired to when I was too young to think about owning one, Nikon was strictly for professionals or amateurs who had more money than anyone I was likely to know. By the time I could afford a good camera, screw mount was seen as slightly old fashioned and the K-mount had been introduced. The universal nature of the K-mount devalued it slightly in my eyes (at the time) and it became associated with lesser brands. I was seduced by Olympus advertising. The ME and MX Pentaxes didn't have the cachet of the Olympus, and the owners I knew seemed to have reliability problems with them.

Later on Pentax became an "institutional" camera, the K1000 being the cheapest, reliable, marque camera that took good lenses. This was spoiled by the Chinese made variety which regularly fell apart, meaning quality K-mount lenses were left without an obvious body to fit them on that was affordable in numbers. Like most brands, Pentax came out with some real plastic clunkers in the 1990s and the company seemed to lose their way. When I briefly worked for a camera sales company I flirted with the idea of buying an LX, but the head of sales told me not to as "they are always being returned" with an endemic problem whose nature I have since forgotten.

In short, my perception of Pentax is they never again reached the mass public identity or confidence after the Spotmatics, but fell between Nikon's build quality, Olympus's coolness and Canon's innovation. Minolta were never a big player in the UK. If I were buying a Pentax in 2015 I'd opt for a nice old black Spotmatic for looks and a K2 if I was using it as my regular camera, but would probably buy something else first.

 

[Steve Smith]

Spotmatic.


Steve.

 

[blockend]

One more thing, the Pentax like the Zenit it was so often swapped for, was in hindsight a photographer's camera. There are as many great old photographs on Flickr taken with the Zenit E and K1000 as any professional SLR. Their buyers tended to be people who were more concerned with taking the pictures than the cameras that took them, and spent their money on film rather than photo magazines that reminded them they were bottom of the heap. For that reason alone the owners of such cameras should be applauded for not giving in to snobbery and providing many of the unrepeatable photographs we can enjoy today.

 

[gzinsel]

IMO, SLR's from the 70's were/are not as good as LTM bodies from the 50's/60's. Continuing after the 1970's SLRS, (IMO) got worse. meaning, they were were made more cheaply, made with more plastic. Over all, the mass production of 35mm SLR's were average camera's, that had good, ( not great) lenses! Of all the production models out there, Pentax was somewhere in the middle of middlebrow. But I think that was the point, of the huge success of 35mm SLR's. . . .. . they were affordable, easy to use, with pretty good results. Now Thats middlebrow Aesthetics at work!!! As those who say today, (contemplating a new digital camera), what I have now is "GOOD ENOUGH" like many 35mm SLR's of the day. . . . "good enough!" And Good enough was Pentax!

As always the case is, its NOT the camera that makes art, its the artist. Clearly Pentax camera were capable, In "capable hands" of capturing a moment or two, you know. . . ."somethin', somethin' for the annuals

 

[naaldvoerder]

Sweet, sweet lenses.. Takumars.

Elegant slr's

Fidelity to their lensmount!!

Pentax 6x7

 

[Steve Roberts]

Spotmatic.


Steve.

As succinct as I was long-winded!

Steve

 

[Michael W]

ME Super because I owned one in the '80s.
K1000 because that was a widely recommended learners camera back then.

 

[Marvin]

Never had one till yesterday at the Goodwill store.

 

[Peltigera]

Quality
Desirable

When I had my first proper job in 1973, I got £35.00 a week before tax. The best camera I could afford was a Zenit E which cost me £45.00. I really, really wanted a Pentax Spotmatic but they cost around £125 - way out of my reach. I have three now.

 

[mdarnton]

1/ Stuck with thread mount way past use-by date
2/ Weak film advance

I worked at a camera store in the 60s and early 70s and those were the things that impeded Pentax sales in our shop. I thought it was a great package--compact with great ergonomics--except for the lens mount, and was delighted when the K1000 came out, but that was just after my camera sales stint. I was brought up on Leicas, and by the time the K1000 came out, I was already too deep into Olympus to get out, but I would have much preferred a K1000 to an OM1.

I remember discussions in camera magazines at the time of using an interrupted thread mount as an option to upgrade the mount to a bayonet equivalent and stay backwards compatible, but that didn't go anywhere. It would have been interesting.

 

[wiltw]

Asahi was the first in the world to SHOW an SLR with Through-the-lens metering, making them somewhat of a leader in technology back then. Unfortunately Topcon beat them to the market with the world's first commercially available TTL metering SLR.

The Pentax H3v was a nice non-TTL camera, and the Spotmatic was a very nice TTL camera. Apparently the Spotmatic was a very popular camera, outselling all the other brands combined! But the metering with lens stopped down was a disadvantage compared to the many cameras which could meter TTL with the lens wide open. There were a number of Pentax 'imitators' with their own TTL cameras (Mamiya-Sekor, Yashica), all using the same stopped-down system of TTL metering, though, so the metering system was not an outcast in the market. But generally the Spotmatic was well esteemed yet affordable (compared to Topcon RE Super or Nikon F Phototomic T) at $270.

The screw-on lens mount of the time was a bit of an issue, in terms of speed of lens change. The sharing of the same lens mount with a variety of brands made the lenses quite common in the market, though.

Like most every other brand, Pentax offered the 'cheap SLR' in the K-1000, aimed at the amateur market. That attracted the mass market to buying a very affordable Pentax body.

 

[Peltigera]

Never had a problem with threaded lenses - still don't. I find changing a lens on my Pentax/Zenits/Prakticas to be no slower than on my Canon EOS cameras. The actual twisting bit is faster with a bayonet mount, of course, but having to line up index marks with a bayonet mount slows that down. Fetching the replacement lens from your kit bag, removing both caps, replacing both caps on the old lens, storing the old lens in the kit bag takes so much longer than actually twisting the lens to fit it, the percentage saving in time and effort with a bayonet lens is rather small.

 

[bergytone]

I remember when in high school in the 70's I wanted my first "good" SLR. I went down to Shutan camera in Chicago and looked at the dozens of examples of cameras. I couldn't swing the money that Canon and Nikon wanted so I was left with the Pentax K1000 or the Minolta SRT101. About the same price if I remember right. The pentax almost seemed a bit too basic... didn't even have a self timer! So I chose the Minolta.
Of course the guy at the counter was pushing the minolta or the Canon products.

 

[Ap507b]

For me I will say completely overlooked. 30 years is a long time, but nothing that Pentax did 30 years ago got onto the shortlist of cameras to replace the Praktica BC1 that I had. The shortlist came down to an Olympus OM2 SP, a Canon T90 & a Nikon FA. The Nikon won by a long way.

 

[teejay]

My first "proper" camera was an ME-Super when I was in sixth-form ('82 ish ?) - still got it - still working - still beautiful !

 

[Sirius Glass]

My first "proper" camera was an ME-Super when I was in sixth-form ('82 ish ?) - still got it - still working - still beautiful !

Welcome to APUG

 

[Sirius Glass]

I wanted a Pentax early on, but by the time I could afford a single lens reflex it was apparent that a bayonet mount was stronger and much faster for changing lenses and I choose the Minolta SR-7 instead.

 

[narsuitus]

When you think of Pentax from the film era, what are the first things that come to mind?

Pentax Spotmatics by Narsuitus, on Flickr

Pentax Spotmatic
Small size
dependable
M42 screw mount lenses
high quality lenses
50mm f/1.4 Super Takumar 8-element lens a personal favorite
reasonably priced
good travel camera

Pentax ME by Narsuitus, on Flickr

Pentax ME
small size
reasonably priced

 

[Alan Gales]

When I was young a good friend owned a Pentax K1000. Another friend bought a brand new ME Super Program.

When I moved to where I live now a neighbor owned a Pentax 67. He ended up becoming a good friend also.

Later I owned the Pentax 645, 645N and 645Nll. I mostly shot the Nll and really enjoyed it for hand held shooting people.

Now I own a couple Pentax digital spot meters.

I guess you could say that I think of Pentax very favorably!

 

[flavio81]

For me I will say completely overlooked. 30 years is a long time, but nothing that Pentax did 30 years ago got onto the shortlist of cameras to replace the Praktica BC1 that I had. The shortlist came down to an Olympus OM2 SP, a Canon T90 & a Nikon FA. The Nikon won by a long way.

The FA? One of the ugliest Nikon cameras? And one with particularly sensitive electronics?! No way!!

 

[flavio81]

When you think of Pentax from the film era, what are the first things that come to mind? .

1. Pentax 67 -- one of the more interesting cameras I own

2. The "pentax pentax pentax pentax" vintage commercials on youtube

3. The fact that here i've never found (here, in my city) an interesting Pentax lens. ("Interesting" in the sense of particularly fast or particularly wide.) All Pentax lenses i've found were plain vanilla lenses, like 35/3.5, 35/2.8, 135/2.8, 50/1.4, etc.

4. "How the mighty have fallen"

5. This comment is very good:

In short, my perception of Pentax is they never again reached the mass public identity or confidence after the Spotmatics, but fell between Nikon's build quality, Olympus's coolness and Canon's innovation. Minolta were never a big player in the UK. If I were buying a Pentax in 2015 I'd opt for a nice old black Spotmatic for looks and a K2 if I was using it as my regular camera, but would probably buy something else first.

More or less my perception of the brands:

Nikon = pro appeal, classics, high build quality, conservative tech
Canon = high lens quality, high tech, high build quality
Olympus (OM system) = Gimmicky. The hipster's choice, cool looking but not better.
Minolta = great camera designers, but lens choice not so wide.

 

[MattKing]

Not bad, but not nearly as good as Olympus OM

And a really neat 110 SLR system.

 

[Ap507b]

The FA? One of the ugliest Nikon cameras? And one with particularly sensitive electronics?! No way!!

When I bought the FA back in 86 the fragility wasn't widely known. Touch wood mine hasn't given me any problems apart from needing a refoam. It still shoots as nice as day 1. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder & what put me off of the techno marvel that was the T90 was the way it looked. Just struck me as so ugly that I couldn't see it around my neck. A couple of years ago out of curiosity I picked up an OM2 SP to give it a try. Felt a brief urge to try a T90 but all I read about the ERR error & needing to bang it on the floor as a temp fix put me off. Just saying that Canon's of the same era aren't 100% reliable either

 

[flavio81]

When I bought the FA back in 86 the fragility wasn't widely known. Touch wood mine hasn't given me any problems apart from needing a refoam. It still shoots as nice as day 1. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder & what put me off of the techno marvel that was the T90 was the way it looked. Just struck me as so ugly that I couldn't see it around my neck. A couple of years ago out of curiosity I picked up an OM2 SP to give it a try. Felt a brief urge to try a T90 but all I read about the ERR error & needing to bang it on the floor as a temp fix put me off. Just saying that Canon's of the same era aren't 100% reliable either 

I agree with you with the T90. You should try a Canon New F-1.

As for the FA, i briefly owned one, but liked the FG, FE, and F3 much better. The F3's meter electronics also failed on me, and it wasn't the first F3 i've seen with dead meters (!).

At the end i kept only the FG and a Nikon F2AS. The FG because it was very small. To be honest, i don't care for matrix metering, and i don't need many modes of automation, only one is good, even zero automation is good for me.

 

[David Lyga]

I think of how, as a 16 year old in 1966, I could not afford one. And, also, the first that came to mind was the shear beauty of the H series, predecessor to the Spotatic and K1000. And, also, the fact that, as far as basic reliability, Pentax was among the tops. 'Nuff said. - David Lyga