Pentax ESII

Hi,

I'm starting to see a few mint ES II's showing up on eBay. From my limited understanding, these aperture priority, electronic shuttered models were rather short lived and quickly sqeezed out by the K mounts and actually not offered in the bayonet series.

Does anyone have opinions on the reliability and longevity of this interesting-sounding model? Some are going for less than mint Spotmatic F's, which I believe are very reliable and desireable. (I'm beginning to build a SMC lens collection in anticipation of either an F or ESII which can use the open metering feature.)

Thanks again in advance.

The ES is notoriously unreliable and is probably better in a glass cabinet than in use.

The ESII is much better as a useable camera, and also has an extended number of manual shutter speeds. However, these are still very early electronic cameras and are not as inherently reliable as later models.

But without these models we would not have progressed onto the K2 and later electronic models. Everything has to start somewhere.

As a useable camera, I would stick to the Spotmatics if you want a screw-thread model.

Oh venerable and wise, you've saved my b&#t once again. An F it will be!

Yeah, the few ES's and ES II's that seem to be working (after being asked to verify) also surprise the sellers (Hey, we tested like you requested, and guess what? It Works!!) but are still being sold as is. Evolution they may have been , to be fair, but natural selection left them on ice floes to perish. (Canadian joke).

Thank's again, Mr. Riley.

Hi, I went to Japan in 1973 (the year wife No.1 went back to Mum) and bought a Japanese home-market camera the 'Electro-Spotmatic'. Can't remember how many Yen I paid but it was much cheaper than UK price even when I was stung by Customs for Purchase Tax and Import Duty at Heathrow;HOWEVER, I soon found it was not reliable; sometimes when I was out on a job taking pics in quick sucession the first frame might be OK but the others would be heavily over-exposed. I sent some samples to the Pentax Club and Peter Cox replied that due to the CdS meter in it there was a 'memory' effect which led to a build up of light somehow resulting in a slower shutter speed and over-exposure. I was offered £85 for it by a camera club member as it had the original box and instructions which I quickly accepted!

Hi,
The Electro Spotmatics were/are well noted for their unreliability and this carried forward into the early ES's. The problem was the design of the circuit board in the base of the camera. Once this had been changed, the electronics behaved much better. If the board goes, it is very difficult to sort. With the later ones, although the boards are more reliable, the shutter was operated by electromagnets at slow speed and in auto. With age, these often cause problems with a build up of dirt or going out of alignment. Unfortunately, although they can be fixed, they are burried quite deep and need a lot od dissembly (= cost) to get at. Add to that the standard mechanical problems of the era and the extra bulk which upset the balance and you can understand why even the good ones are not sought after except by the ardent collector. Big difference ith the K2 and later cameras was that they had electronic shutters and not electrically controlled mechanical ones. (Until the LX of course!)

Kim