Pentax Advertising - the 1970s

I'm working my way through my copies of Photo Technique and I thought I would pull out the Pentax advertising as I went. This first one is a double page spread from Vol 2 No 2 (the first issue in my collection) dated December 1973.

Very interesting, a good bit of history .... and amazing to see from that old photo just how our Shake Reduction technology has come on over the years .

Moving forwards to February 1974, we find a cover mention for a rather interesting competition. Inside, the Pentax advert runs to three pages. First the teaser page, the turn overleaf and we found the two page advert.

I wonder who won the gold Pentax and where it is today?

I like these old camera adverts. They're very interesting and make me want to grab one of my old film cameras and go and shoot.

An updated version of the ESII advert appeared May 1974.

By June 1974 we had a one page full colour advert.



We also found out who won the gold Pentax Spotmatic. The well deserved winner was Wim Groeneveld from Holland. His panel of images, shots of his wife, were very gritty and modern, most unlike the sort of bland winners that we might have expected from Another Publication.

Just to complete the record, the runners up in that competition were Ed Buziak, James A Laurence, Mervyn Rees, Sigurd Thoreirsson and Douglas Winton. At least a couple of familiar names in there, at least to those of us who read magazines.

This continued throughout 1974 and 1975, with one page ads covering one model. usually the Spotmatic F or the ES II. Then, in November 1975 there was a surprise as Pentax introduced the K mount. There was no need for adverts in November 1975 as PT did this handsome 5 page test.










That's one of things that I liked about that era of Photo Technique. It was young, brash and very thorough.

The new models and the bayonet mount arrived with a huge splash, and by March 1976 advertisers were listing the full range of bayonet lenses, from 15mm to 1000mm. Whether or not they were all available from stock is something else, because in the 1970s shops were notrious for advertising kit they didn't have. Sometimes we could wait weeks or months for delivery. It was not the instant world of today.

So, from March 1976 the advertising also was under way.

I think there is a marketing lesson here, this sort of spread has these days been taken by Olympus and the brand certainly gets noticed.

These are great - and as above, makes you want to get one! Interesting the 'excuses'/ reasons for being late to the game with the bayonet mount!

September 1976 brought a new camera to test, plus two rather special new lenses.



Following on in December a new advert was launched.



Also from December 1976 is the Photokina report, revealing the MX and ME and also a mass of new lenses.

Interesting to see the Honeywell Visitronic AF system listed. As far as I can find out, it was never released in that form.

So when and why did Pentax drop from it's premier position to a lame third a couple of years ago? I just read an old forum comment from a Pentax user in 2005 complaining that Pentax had stopped production of 35mm film cameras, that as Nikon wouldn't follow suit he would switch brands and NEVER buy a digital camera!

I see a genuine link for Pentax to do an Olympus and release a retro camera. Their bodies looked awesome before the move to the bulky digital moulded grip.