Spotmatic F Meter Working?

I have just taken delivery of a very pristine condition Spotmatic F. The seals and mirror-cushion do need replacement, but my concern is whether or not the meter is non-functional. I have a copy of the 'owner manual', but it is very vaugue in that it simply states to 'turn on the meter'... without actually showing how to do this. I do not have any M42 lenses for the body yet, but I did the 'battery test' (set iso dial to iso100 and set shutter speed to the 'B' setting) and the meter needle rises up, immediately, to its highest position. When I set the shutter speed to any other position the meter goes to the central position of its range, but it does not fluctuate when I point it at different amounts of illumination.
Two questions: Do I need to have a lens on this body for proper function of meter (fluctuation)? And how do I actually 'turn on' the meter? Any words of wisdom from those 'in the know', much appreciated!
Thanks,
Owen

Sorry... I wasn't logged in when I posted!

Owen

Hi Owen,
The F was slightly different from the earlier Spots. With the F, there is an additional photo cell which activates the meter when the lens cap is taken off. So without a lens or body cap, the meter wil be on. the meter cct is affected by the amount of light, the ASA, the shutter speed and the aperture coupling with the SMC lenses. Without a lens you may be outside the meter range and so getting spurious results. I will try mine tonight when I get home to see if this affects.

If you need the name of a good repairer in the US I can let you have one. As I am in the UK, I haven't used him but many Spotmatic users that I trust say he is one of the best and at a reasonble price.

Regards
Kim

Hi Kim,
Thank you for everything that you wrote! This is my very first 'F' model Spotmatic (I've owned many of the earlier Spotmatic models) and thanks to you I now understand what the user's manual was saying by 'remove lens cap and the meter is on'. I'm waiting to hear if your meter behaves like mine, with the lens off. I've played with the body a bit more and when I make it really dark, with my hand in front of the lens opening, I can see the meter fluctuate... so I've nearly convinced myself that it is working normally. It would be great to hear your findings though before I begin buying auto-lenses for this body. Yes indeed, I'd very much be grateful to know of a reputable source of repair/cla's here in the US or Canada (North America.)
Thank you and Regards,
Owen

Hi Owen,
I haven't had a chance to play with my F yet but the guy everybody recommends in the US is Eric. Eric's contact info:

Eric Hendrickson
[email protected]">[email protected]
272 Shoffner Rd
Sharps Chapel, TN 37866
Fax/phone 865 278-1051

www.pentaxs.com

If nothing else is wrong, you could do the seals yourself. Jon Goodman sells a very good kit for $6 which has enough for about 6 bodies. You can find him on the Bay uder the name of "interslice"

Regards
Kim

Thank you for all of this great information, Kim! The 'interslice-kits' look like a 'must have', to me. I really do appreciate you taking your time to share all of this with me!
Many thanks,
Owen

I have another question about the meter in this Spotmatic F. I've tried a couple of 'Russian' lenses, on the camera body, that do not have any metering pins or arms and the meter is definitely not operational with them... even with the cameras stop down lever set in the 'up' position for 'stop down lens' metering. For this camera model, does the usage of the term 'stop down lenses' (in the manual) refer solely to earlier non-automatic Pentax lenses?. I ask because when the stop down lever is activated (up position) the bar in the bottom of the cameras mirror box extends, like it wants to make contact with a 'lens-pin.' Or does 'stop down lenses', as per the manual, mean any of the lenses that we generically refer to as stop down lenses?... like the lenses having two rings (one for setting the desired aperture and the other for opening the aperture full wide to focus... then move to the desired aperature afterwards). In short... should the Spotmatic F be metering with the 'Russian' stop down lenses? Sorry for the confusion... it's been a few years since I've used my old Spotmatics and I do not remember much if anything about their use. If someone can set me right again, I'd really appreciate the help.
Regards,
Owen

Sorry again... I botched the terminoligy in my last post! The 'Russian' lenses that I tried are actually 'preset lenses.'
I found this after posting: http://www.aohc.it/tak00e.htm ... and it brought back some of the things that I used to understand.
Rgrds,
Owen

Preset lenses are used at open aperture to focus, and then a ring is turned to stop them down to a preset aperture for the actual taking of the picture.

Auto lenses stop down automatically when the shutter is fired, and re-open ready for focusing the next shot.

Semi-auto lenses stop down automatically, but do not re-open, so have to be reset manually.

All this is a million miles away from what is regarded as automation today!

I only had my mitts on an F for a few minutes - though I'm certainly looking for one. The F's automatically metering when the lens cap's removed is a trifle confusing - as it still has the meter switch to the left of the lens mount. The meter doesn't shut off like other Spotmatics when the switch is pressed down - or off. I thought the switch was defective and the battery (worth a few dollars!) would drain.

Does anyone know why the F still has this switch?

Thank's

Mac

Sorry! I've just found the answer to my query by looking into Pentax Canada's online manual. The switch is still used for Depth of Field preview and is not connected to the meter.

(Put brain in gear before..........)