Pentax 35 mm: I must have blinked

David H. Bebbington · May 7, 2006

There have been lots of announcements about discontinuation of film cameras recently, but I can't recall anything about Pentax 35 mm. However, I recently started a picture series using my Pentax MZ5-n (the only 35 mm camera for which I own a genuine macro lens) and it struck me that I had no backup for this. I was stunned to discover that the Pentax range of 35 mm film SLRs has been officially cut down to 2 models (*ist and MZ-60) and (worse) that apparently no one is selling these in the UK except for Pentax themselves, which presumably means that only the most dyed-in-the-wool Pentax fan will seek them out, demand will collapse and even these models will disappear PDQ!

gnashings · May 7, 2006

And of course, it will be another case of "well, *whine*, NO one is buying these things anymore"...
I have a car I rarely use - no one is buying it either - perhaps because it has not "for sale" sign on it, it is not advertised, and its hidden at the bottom of a driveway that even I find inconvenient to access! Perhaps I could get some of these digital apologists and marketing gurus to explain to me why "its just not selling"...

Peter.

David H. Bebbington · May 7, 2006

A further problem could well be that even the people who want to buy a *ist can't pronounce it!

Derek Lofgreen · May 7, 2006

I just bought an *ist. It was the demonstration model in the glass case of the shop. I had to search high and low. Pentax is trying to play catch up with Canon and Nikon in the pixel wars. They were late to the game and there only digitl SLR is a little week. They have licenced the *istDS to Samsung now too. However they have big plans for a new DLSR this year in partnership with Samsung. Some people think that Pentax will go the way of Konica with Sony gobbling them up. Samsung may be the new Pentax and that means no film cameras any more form them.

Sorry for all this digital stuff but I thought it was relevant. I love my new *ist by the way. Best little 35mm for the money I have ever seen.

David Brown · May 7, 2006

David H. Bebbington said:
... I recently started a picture series using my Pentax MZ5-n (the only 35 mm camera for which I own a genuine macro lens) and it struck me that I had no backup for this. ...

Just a suggestion: Get a Spotmatic and a Super Takumar macro.

David H. Bebbington · May 7, 2006

These were good items, but the MZ-5n came in just right for what I was doing. The subjects (flowers) were so close I couldn't get an exposure meter or even a gray card between them and the lens, so the matrix metering and auto-bracketing were very handy. I am constantly impressed how the middle bracket exposure seems to be right 95% or more of the time.

I never had any luck with Spotmatics - the Government gave me one to use in the 1960s, I was shooting maybe 10 rolls of slides a day and the camera used to last about 2 months between trips to the workshop with a broken shutter. Also the averaging metering was difficult to use in the studio. The lenses were great though.

mawz · May 11, 2006

Just go used. The *ist is OK, but the Viewfinder is unimpressive (unlike its sibling DSLR's, all of which have superior, if smaller, viewfinders).

Pentax is also still selling the MZ-M in most places. No AF or TTL flash, but otherwise quite a competent little SLR, and the only one Pentax makes that fully supports K/M lenses (The *ist and MZ-60 don't work with non-A lenses and the DSLR's only do stop-down metering).

David H. Bebbington · May 12, 2006

mawz said:
Just go used. The *ist is OK, but the Viewfinder is unimpressive (unlike its sibling DSLR's, all of which have superior, if smaller, viewfinders).

Pentax is also still selling the MZ-M in most places. No AF or TTL flash, but otherwise quite a competent little SLR, and the only one Pentax makes that fully supports K/M lenses (The *ist and MZ-60 don't work with non-A lenses and the DSLR's only do stop-down metering).

I am busy acquiring MZ-5n examples right now! Incidentally, the MZ-5n seems to work quite happily with Pentax M lenses (it appears to be rather random whether later Pentaxes do this, before the MZ-5n I had Z20s, which wouldn't work with M lenses!).

Willie Jan · May 12, 2006

I had an mz-s and thought what when the electronics will fail in the future.

I sold it and bought an LX (latest model) for very few bucks, which probably will outlive me....

Pentax 35 mm: I must have blinked

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