I have a third silver one which is terminally jammed (I suspect an attempt to dismantle in its past, but I can't see what went back together wrongly). I haven't decided whether to get it professionally sorted or use the body panels to tidy up the scruffy working body.

Thing is, I quite like having a camera which looks as though it won a fight with a bear. It gives a certain credibility and also means that I'm not worried about adding any new scrapes. The jammed one isn't in bad shape cosmetically so I might well have it CLA'd rather than losing the "rat rod" look of the one on the right here.

I'd love a black one but prices are a bit mad. I paid £50 for the minty silver one (came with lens, ERC, gadget bag, an old Prinz flash and a light meter) and £45 for the scruffy one without a lens (probably over the odds, but I wanted an MX and had the money handy!)

I have the winder too, but I don't like the way it leaves the camera wound on as I hear this doesn't do the shutter springs any favours.

As I now have two of these in very different condition I thought a photo was due:

[IMG]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x21/Kingofthemountains/IMGP5244.jpg[/IMG]

The one on the left arrived today and is in very good condition with only a little paint loss, it seems to work perfectly and came with a genuine ever-ready case. It now awaits new light seals before I can try it out.

The one on the right evidently had a much harder life before I bought it, as there are numerous rubs and scrapes on the chrome with a dent in the top of the prism. It still seems to work properly though, and I've had several correctly-exposed rolls of film from it.

Try here

I've bought plenty of kits from them now without any hassle. The materials seem good, the parts fit, and they're easy to install.

Well, I've got the MX now and it's pretty much perfect. A little corrosion of the chrome on the sides of the lens mount flange, a few minor paint scrapes and a missing lens cap clip are about the only things I can find wrong with it. The ERC is complete and a genuine MX one with the dark blue/black felt inside rather than the red found on other M series cases. I've ordered a set of replacement light seals as they've gone gooey, so I'll also be replacing those on my ME and KM as the kit was a special offer to replace seals on three cameras. Looking forward to trying this one out!

Mostly because zooms won't fit!

I have the M 35-70mm and 75-150mm zooms but they're far too big

As for why, it depends on what you do with your cameras. I was aiming for a non-squashable waterproof container which could be stuffed into a normal bag without having to worry about getting it wet. I've yet to notice any trouble with rubbing. It's also a pretty effective demonstration of the fact that Pentax M series bodies and lenses are very compact, even by the standards of thirty years after their release.

I never got around to doing that particular lane before changing my car - I don't think the Forester would like it much though!

I took my old Discovery around most of the vaguely sensible routes near here, the Forester will be doing anything without deep water or ruts/big holes. I still get up the valley on a regular basis when the weather co-operates.

That's encouraging!

I've used about five frames of it so far, waiting for the weather to improve somewhat. I find mono works better on dull grey days and colour when it's sunny.

Thanks HG - I'm going to try to avoid taking too much off as that tends to increase my chances of getting it back together!

I don't see much point in getting it professionally repaired as I only paid £28 for it and the 50/1.7 is very nice indeed, so if I can't sort it the lens was worth the purchase price. Given it seems mechanically sound and the shutter speeds appear accurate I'd quite like to fix this electrical gremlin. The camera has been sitting in my flight case for about a year now, since I found the fault and have only just got around to fixing it!

One of my ME Supers has a bizarre fault where it occasionally underexposes by two stops. Weirdly if I wiggle the exposure compensation dial this clears, so I'm guessing it's due to dirty contacts (given the thing reeked of tobacco smoke when I got it I'm not entirely surprised).

So, obviously, I'm working out where the contacts are with a view to squirting some cleaning fluid in there and working the mechanism to scrub the dirt out. Does the ME S use the same variable resistor for exposure compensation and film speed setting (as the MV1 and other simpler M series do)? Or is it somewhere deeper in the mechanism?

Given that rainy days tend to look better in mono...

Get an old 35mm camera and a few rolls of film. Given I've seen working P30ts going for £10 or so you don't have much to lose if it gets drowned (unlikely unless you actually drop it in a lake).

Do remember to dry it out properly when you get home. I generally leave cameras in the airing cupboard for a few hours if they've been out in the rain.