job lot!

i have just acquired, by a well-known online auction site, eight Pentax film cameras. sold as seen, they may work, they may not.

anyway, the haul consists of
ME
MG
P30t
P50
MX
SF7
SFX
and another SF7

plus a ME Winder and AF240Z flash

there is a manual for the P50, but none of the others, so off to search.

any tips for any of these? I do have a P30 (not the T version) but i'm used to clunky russian slrs and TLRs!

Cheers, John.

luckily i had a couple of batteries from my odd collection of film cameras to try most of them out... only the MG looks to be duff, although it works in the 1/100 mode.

the SFs will need a different battery.

i found some manuals online and they seem pretty straight-forward. most are in pretty good shape... it's now time to decide what one to try out first - the ME and MX are head to head in the race.

If I recall correctly both the Pentax ME and MX have buttons on the top of the camera; same side as the shutter release. Unfortunately these buttons were typically the first items on the camera to go.

As for batteries, could be worse. At least it's not a Pentax K1000. Not that there is much of anything wrong with those cameras, with one exception,,, With the single battery installed, the match needle meter could not be turned off

The ME Super has shutter speed buttons, although I've never experienced any problem with these myself. The MX doesn't, it's fully manual.

The K1000 has am electro-switch that turns off the meter when light falls below 3 EV. So a lens cap is all that's needed to ensure this.

In any event, silver oxide batteries will comfortably last for a year of use in these cameras. Alkaline maybe six months. Very different to the recharging that we have become used to!

to add to my new swag, i have just purchased chemicals and the final bits and pieces to process B&W film.

next job is to get some more batteries and then i'll start testing properly.

as the MX is manual i could use it without batteries as these only operate the meter which tells you if the shutter/aperture combination is correct - is that right? if i am metering manually, then that doesn't matter (i am used to 120 TLRs and using a light meter anyway).

I've found it incredibly interesting to see how digital cameras really try to capture B&W; whether it's the camera itself, or in any variation afterwards. I've tried it with more cameras than I would ever want to count.

Pentax is better than average at it, yet it still works better when added to in photoshop.

Nikon D3 quite good at it, but D4 is better. The Canon eos1dc is one of the best Canons, but not quite as good as the Nikons.

Ironically the Sigma camera bodies do incredibly well at B&W, better than any of the cameras mentioned above. Guessing that the "individual spectrum" (or whatever the real term is) sensor has something to do with this.

Or for someone looking for the truly epic B&W image, the "dedicated" black and white ONLY Leica Monochrom (not misspelled??) is beyond compare; especially with ANY Leica glass, but especially the f0.95

Film remains one of the true B&W mediums that very digitals can touch

using 120 film recently makes you realise how good film is - i think digital has made me appreciate film more now. B&W on digital has always been frustrating - the K100d is good - but that sensor is fantastic for most things.

maybe the earlier digital cameras were trying to emulate film, whereas now they are approaching it differently. it could also be the reason that film is still doing well - there are two different views of the photography world and how they capture the images, digital are no longer just digitising what a film camera would capture.

anyway - it's a rubbish weekend and i only have 100iso film - this is where the modern world wins out.