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I didn't want to hijack the DSLR vs FSLR thread but poor old Pentax deserves a bit more love

'Post modern' Pentax always gets a hard time here. Some members must have experienced some bad Pentax moments....The shutter jamming as our boat wins the America's cup...The lens fogging up as our cricket captain cries...the body being crushed by a pack of Nikon wielding journos with their F3's trying to photo men at work.

I never got to use the revered Spotmatic as it sounded a bit like a self cleaning washing machine.

Not all K mounts were rubbish. My Pentax ME Super was fully black which definitely made it go faster. 2000th shutter speed back in 82 was pretty good. And it had some groovy little LED's. It just had a great feel and never let me down. I even won a photo comp with one of the photos I took with it...so it must be good. Their LX was also a nice machine but I could never afford one at the time. The K1000 was pretty ugly and simple but quite reliable...bit like my dog. August 18th has always been 'Be kind to Pentax day'

....Now my old Zenit EM...that had all the finesse of the Russian tanks rolling into Czechoslovakia. Hell, I'm even changing the topic and its my topic.

Pentax....'They could a been a contender.'

Any comments...in the spirit they are intended

i had the silver ME super ... great camera ... especially after my first SLR the Zennit TTL

it performed flawlessly for many many years

still got it but it was stuffed in a flood.
tried a few P&S's then got an *istDs, K100D, K10D, K20D, Km [white] and K7 as well as a MX, Mg, P30, P7 ...cant remember but got several old film cameras that came with lenses i wanted

still got em all

and they are still a great brand but their marketing skills leave a lot to be desired so no one knows it

Big Red wrote:i had the silver ME super ... great camera ... especially after my first SLR the Zennit TTL

There's a surprise ....

petermmc wrote:'Post modern' Pentax always gets a hard time here. Some members must have experienced some bad Pentax moments....The shutter jamming as our boat wins the America's cup...The lens fogging up as our cricket captain cries...the body being crushed by a pack of Nikon wielding journos with their F3's trying to photo men at work.

Peter, while I know that you're joking here, the reality is that Pentax used to make some truly great cameras, but - and this was about the time that the K-Mount was introduced - they changed their focus completely. Instead of making workhorses, they lowered their standards, and aimed squarely at a market point a little below that of where the prosumer market might have been. The not-quite enthusiast market, if I can use that term. Maybe a McDonalds mindset?

But the K-Mount was good, and it proliferated too: Chinon, Ricoh, and several other manufacturers licensed the mount, and thus you could buy inexpensive bodies and glass, and mix and match. Pentax were certainly the best of the bodies, but they were all pretty much serviceable and easy to work with. Unfortunately, the quality of the glass did take a dip, and that certainly didn't help their cause.

I never got to use the revered Spotmatic as it sounded a bit like a self cleaning washing machine.

The perhaps we need to try to find you one, to at least have a play with. I think that it will really make you sit up and take notice; the Spotmatic is certainly a legendary camera, up there with the Canon A1 and Nikon FE. Probably the best Pentax ever, and the ME, while yes, a good(ish) camera, really was behind the eight-ball in comparison.

August 18th has always been 'Be kind to Pentax day'

I must remember to diarise that.

....Now my old Zenit EM...that had all the finesse of the Russian tanks rolling into Czechoslovakia.

I had one of these too. Sort of how Hyundai might build a Nikkormat, but with screw mount lenses. I can certainly see where an ME Super would seem to be such a great camera with that as your upgrade path.

...... ahhhh, the spotmatic was my camera of choice, along with a 28-mm lens...... before I discovered Nikon, well made enough money to buy one.....I was very young

I will remember the K1000...one of the two bodies I learnt on in high school (I took a preference to the FM2 owned by my teacher though and would grab that camera whenever possible) it always felt well built and reliable. Now I have taken a liking to the Km and the K7 (the K7 just fits my hands) but I would not trade my Nikon's for Pentax.

I had and loved a Spotmatic-F I also used my father in law's Spotmatic. Both were great cameras & I had some great lenses too. My favourite was the 120 f2 (I think - its been a long time)Perfect for candid portraits. I also had a 55/1.8 and a 35/2.8. My father in law had a 50/1.2 that I was VERY jealous of. All were SMC Takumar (Pentax's Lens arm) By the time I got enough money to buy more lenses though, Pentax had moved to the bayonet mount, and the supply of ES mount lenses had dried up, even on the second hand market. I looked at the then current crop of Pentax bodies, and bought a Nikon FM2

i have quite a few of the first K mount lenses [not actually named but commonly called the K lenses] which were a carry over from the Takumars [the screw mount ones off the spotmatics] and most are exactly the same as the screw mounts.
then they bought out the second generation called the M lenses ... these were smaller and lighter and you had to know which one are the good ones in the consumer class [IE: the 28/2.8 is not as good as the 28/3.5] but the star lenses [*] were all good.
there is a lot of good Primes out there which work great on digital but most of the zooms are not so good.

i should get out with the primes more but the newer zooms are so much easier and are decent quality ... and i'm lazy

I was wondering what Gary was referring to in this thread, found it here

My first SLR was a Pentax SV, which had an external meter mounted on top of the camera and connected to the shutter dial. Later I got a Cosina body, which died, and later still I switched to Nikon.

radar wrote:I was wondering what Gary was referring to in this thread, found it here

Yep!!