Pentax MX. Any good?

[Nicole]

Drew, I took another look, it's the MZ! Doh! At least I got the format right. Yikes, one day I'll learn about using cameras and taking pictures.

 

[benjiboy]

Not the end

Drew, I took another look, it's the MZ! Doh! At least I got the format right. Yikes, one day I'll learn about using cameras and taking pictures.

I think that if more of us could learn to use a camera like you do Nicole and worry less about the equipment we would all be better photographers, cameras are just a means to an end.

 

[Steve Roberts]

I think you just had a bad experience Steve, and as with any second hand item you dont know what happened to it before you got it, all I can tell you is that we ran ten photographic shops in the midlands and north of England at the time the MX was current, and I handled all the repairs for the group, who must have sold hundreds of them, and the total number of repairs we sent back to Pentax UK , both in and out of warranty in the seven years I worked the company were certainly less than ten

Hi Bentley,

Apart from my misgivings about the MX, I owned an ME (from new) and ME Super, both of which also had problems. Clearly my "statistical" evidence isn't anywhere near as soundly based as yours, but it did leave me unimpressed by the range when compared with their predecessors.

One of the problems with the nearly new ME Super was that the LEDs took to blinking randomly in a rather festive kind of way. After two unsuccessful attempts by professional camera repairers, I had it apart and was surprised to find that the top plate was not metal but plastic (not what one expected to find back then!) It was clever in that the base colour of the plastic was brassy but it was coated black, so the corners appeared to wear through to brass like many other black-bodied cameras. The problem was actually quite simple once I found it in that the earth connection of the switch assembly on the top plate (those nasty two little buttons etc) relied on metal sprayed on to the plastic and a lug that bore on the main camera body. I superseded this with my own earthing wire and all was well for a couple of years until the shutter wouldn't cock at wind-on, at which point I consigned it to the attic.

The straight ME I bought new from Capital cameras somewhere near Westminster, and at that time (late 70s/early 80s?) I could get a cheap day return ticket to London from Plymouth, buy the camera and have a day out for less in total than I could buy the camera for locally! That camera started giving occasional wildly innaccurate exposures after a couple of years, went back for repair (twice) but was never again 100%.

Most the above is off-topic of the MX, but the three cameras I had and their various problems just led me to believe that with the M series Pentax had sold out a little in terms of reliability for the sake of a little affordable miniaturisation, probably spurred on by the success of the OM1.

Best wishes,
Steve

 

[floydking]

Having been exclusively a Pentax user (for SLR 35mm) I reached the conclusion long ago that the MX is the best camera that Pentax has ever produced, with the exception of the LX. I have used both for 25-30 years. Though it's small size can be a little disagreeable when used with large telephoto, or zoom lenses. However those situations arise so infrequently (using large lenses without a tripod) that they're not really worth considering. Go get!

 

[Glenn Mathison]

I have an old one that I picked up very cheap in a market with the 50/1.7 lens and it's great. Small and easy to conceal. Great for in the backpack when walking out the front door.