Pentax KX

Whats an average price for a KX? Are they easy to find? Looking to buy a film slr soon, can anyone recommend some bodies? Thanks

Why a KX?

They're not a common body, although I'm told they are nice.

If you just want to play with film then a ME or ME super would meet your needs at a reasonable price.

Auto focus bodies, well the MZ6 is my favourite. Have a browse through my site HERE for my views, and listen to what others say before committing.

It can get compulsive!

I was just looking at the ME Super actually, considering the only KX I can find is almost £200 I think the ME would be a great choice

Nice website by the way

Thanks, as you can see I have both the bodies you're thinking of.

The ME tends to be cheaper on ebay, and as long as you're willing to change the light seals they're a pretty bullet proof camera.

The MES tends to be more expensive, although in general a much higher regarded body they also suffer from light seal degredation.

The thing to remember with these bodies is they're manual, so modern AF lenses with no aperture ring don't work too well on them.

I got an ME Super to play with last year. Great camera, I loved using it, need to give it another outing again soon. I am 26, so missed the original film era, but the MES was user friendly and easy to get decent results.

The only thing with all the M series cameras to watch out for is them not winding on properly.

Phrases like doesn't always cock the shutter or needs 2 or 3 strokes to wind on mean the shutter is on the way out.

This seems to be problem that gets worse the latter the model. IE an ME should be OK, but an ME-F can suffer from a dodgy shutter.

Don't rule out the MV and MV-1 either, not as nice as the ME and MES but cheap and useable cameras all the same.

And they usually come free with a 50mm f2 lens.

In my opinion the Pentax MX is an absolute classic manual camera.

definitely Graham, but not something to buy just to try film, that's the next step once you know what your doing..

Thanks for the info and help guys. I actually just bought myself a ME Super, with a 50mm f1.7 included for £35. This sounds like a reasonable price right?

With a 1.7 lens that's a very good price. If it's the one on ebay with a Miranda flash you got a bargain.

Enjoy.

They gave me a flash too actually but I got it off Gumtree, thanks for all the help though I guess all I need now is some film

Have fun, the ME Super is a lovely camera.

BTW, £200 for the KX is way, way over priced. It is a great camera, built like a tank and many nice features but not in that price bracket.

K.

I certainly agree with the forum, you will enjoy using the ME super. Have been using mine quite regularly, am pleased with the results.

You're right Womble, £200 for a KX is way off

Oso

I just got a KX on ebay but I haven't run a film through it yet. It's a beautiful camera, and I think it will suit my large hands better than my MX does. I paid £55 for it with a K55 f/1.8 that had a big ding in the filter ring but was otherwise ok. The camera cleaned up nicely and has been serviced (another £70). All in all, I think the price was reasonable. A service (or at the least a change of light seals) almost always has to be factored into the price of an old camera.

Have fun with your ME Super, the price you paid is what you'd normally pay just for that lens. Get the light seals changed as they will almost certainly be degraded.

For what it's worth, I have recently been using a P30 & P30N and I can't fault them for being great cameras to get into film with, and they're DIRT CHEAP. Not as handsome as the 70s & early 80s cams, but small, functional and well built. The P30N is the only film camera I have which seems to have had ergonomics taken into account when the grip was designed.

The best manual focus grip I've used is one of the Super-A/Program-A/P50 type with the moulded thumb rest on the back (and fabulous with the Motordrive-A). The P30N or T are good cameras and many ways more appealing today than the M series (younger, program mode, AE lock and focussing screens better suited to 35-70/28-80 zoom lenses). DX coding though is a bit of a negative. The P30 only offered program and manual (quite a strange combination).

The MX is really too small for comfort for me, the K1000 is better.