Pentaxian Guidance: What's your favorite Pentax SLR body?

I just re-skimmed this thread and don't think I saw the SV mentioned. Someone I know just turned me onto that camera and I've been doing a bit of reading. Since I don't care about an internal meter, it looks to be an appealing model, although I'm not sure if there are any downsides to the M42 mount relative to the K mount.

I've bought my Spotmatic in 1966 and have had Konica, Nikon, now many different bayonet mounts, the down side to the M42 was it takes longer to change lens. In terms of bodies, the K1000 and K2 have much better viewfinders, just don't use the meter.

logan2z said:

I just re-skimmed this thread and don't think I saw the SV mentioned. Someone I know just turned me onto that camera and I've been doing a bit of reading. Since I don't care about an internal meter, it looks to be an appealing model, although I'm not sure if there are any downsides to the M42 mount relative to the K mount.

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Well it’s screw on so it’s slower to mount than the bayonet K mount. The other slight gotcha is it’s a system used by a lot of cameras and manufacturers, and some added features in different ways that aren’t entirely compatible. Things like open aperture metering wouldn’t apply to the SV, but I’m not sure how universal the Pentax auto stop down is on non Pentax lenses. I have an SV and it’s a great camera, but I don’t have any non Pentax M42 lenses to say whether there are issues. (I also have a Nikkormat FS meterless camera. I like to use both to test my wild guess metering.)

Pentax, Fuji and Mamiya all made 2 pin open aperture bodies and lens, there are not compatible. Chinon made an M42 open aperture body, the CE3, it was auto exposure and worked with any single pin lens. It worked by metering and selecting the shutter speed as the shutter released was pressed at which time the lens was stopped down.