The Break of Dawn
When Things Stay the Same–
Fortunately, there have been things which have changed little over the years. Pentax is one of these. The long-time favorite Spotmatic with the M42 screw mount just like the one found on the Yashica J3 featured here a few weeks ago, is still highly sought after and a seeming passion for people who like to rough it up and let go of electronic conveniences. The Super Takumar lenses have proven to be long-lasting and still very, very usable. Ever since the camera system let go of its screw mount in 1975, the K mount that replaced it has continued up to the present.
Erick Lirios
One difficulty with older Pentax stuff now is that it’s increasingly hard to find. People seem to have gravitated so much to Canon and Nikon that the other 35mm options have been seen as the “other” option. The story is different with digital stuff since there is a local distributor around but when a person wants to take advantage of the fact that Pentax, like Nikon and unlike Canon, has retained its mount for quite some time and wants to try out film, then the story get a little difficult.
We did a short review of the Pentax K2000 some time ago and we did say that it was a very good and capable camera. That camera’s lens, an 18-55 SMC, will work with an older auto focus film body but not the MX. It is possible though for a person with a film Pentax camera to use that camera’s lenses with the new digital bodies.
If you were persuaded to buy something like the K2000 we featured or any of its siblings, you may want to go out and try this. The MX is not as well known as the Spotmatic, the K1000 or even the ME or ME Super but a Pentax is a Pentax. What’s more, unlike the ME Super, there are hardly any buttons so you still have the retro feel of dials. This is actually a professional camera and professionals at the time when it was introduced and up to recent times were quite hesitant and very suspicious of auto-anything. Their reasoning was simple: They knew how to read a scene pretty well as regards exposure and, in a pinch, they really could work well even without a light meter. All they really needed was a working camera.
This was what the MX was all about. It was the all mechanical sibling of the ME and could function completely even without a working battery. Imagine going somewhere for a professional shoot or a place that’s a once-in-a-lifetime visit and your K2000’s battery just dies. Not to worry. Just pull out the MX, remove the lens from the K2000 (just make sure the lens has an aperture ring), mount it on the MX and, assuming it’s already loaded with film, you’re good to go.
Why do you make sure that the lens you put on the MX has an aperture ring? It needs it so that you can control apertures. The newer lenses won’t have it so take note. What about the older SMC lenses on the digital bodies? Go ahead. It just won’t auto focus.
Just a side note: Canon users are left out in the cold here actually ever since the EOS mount came out, there was no real mechanical camera in the line-up because there couldn’t be. The whole EOS concept presumes electronics and, therefore, battery power. If you want an all mechanical Canon experience, you have to go back to the FD mount cameras like the F1 series, the Ftb and a few others. The AE-1? No. Without a battery, that camera doesn’t work.
One of the best things about most, if not all, Pentax cameras is the fact that they’re really quite small. Most professional bodies are very hefty but this one seems different. It feels solid enough but it’s small enough not to be conspicuous so it’s a good companion to have around when you don’t want to stick out.
What’s another good sign that it’s a pro machine aside from its durability? It has a whole slew of accessories to cater to the needs of the pro. There are interchangeable focusing screens that make life a little easier for specific shooting situations and there’s also a winder that allows shooting up to 2 frames per second and a motor drive that goes all the way up to 5 frames per second. The Canon 40D/50D shoots at around 6 frames per second without attachments and also allows interchangeable screens. Shows you how the “pro” features have trickled down to the not-so-pro models after all these years.
Here’s something that many people, surprisingly, don’t seem to know: Unlike other camera lens mounts, the Pentax K-mount was actually used by other manufacturers for their own camera bodies. Ricoh cameras were once sold by the Kameraworld chain and these cameras were actually K-mounts. Another camera brand is Cosina, a manufacturer which made the Nikon FM-10/FE-10, the Canon T60, the Olympus OM-2000, the Yashica FX-3, some Vivitar models and even its own Cosina C1. All these were essentially the same camera bodies with different names on it and the corresponding lens mounts.
Does this mean that you can get a K-mount Cosina lens, Vivitar or Ricoh lens and pop it into your MX or even the K2000? Yes, and it’s really pretty amazing. While everyone else was out to make sure that their lens mount stayed with them, with very few exceptions, Pentax was actually allowing others to make use of their lens line. Why didn’t more people know about it? Who knows?
