Hi Dave,

Obviously it's subjective, to me they're similar (but I wear glasses) and can't see totally to the corners of either. The biggest differences are likely to be the focus screens, the K1000 only has a centre mirco-prism spot with no spit image (the K1000 SE - appears to be a US model has a split-image). The 'finder surrounds are different (smaller SP/'K' style accessory fitting).

I prefer the K1000 for its larger size and have a much more carefree attitude to it than an MX. I also prefer the needle metering except in dim lighting - it's easier to see how far off 'level' you are at a glance.

John.

Having shot half a dozen films through it now and acquired a 165mm f/2.8 lens, I'm very impressed with it. Apart from a handful of less-than-perfect trannie exposures, the results have so far, been good. I haven't had any obvious problems with shake or vibration (8x loupe on the slides).

Very happy with it.

John.

Hi All,

Things are generally going well with my P67, however after half a dozen rolls a couple have a blank frame at the beginning of the roll (giving only 9 shots). The frame spacing is good and consistent throughout the roll and the other rolls have ten exposures at the same spacing so it must be related to my loading technique.

Is there anything I'm inadvertently doing wrong? I have so far always lined the 'Start' arrows of the film and back, up, although on some occasions this has left the wind lever mid-stroke when I closed the back, could it be connected with this?

Cheers,

John.

With the focal lengths ranges available on a typical zoom, it may not make much difference - although I'd always prefer to use the shortest length. When I accidentally used an M28 with the focal length still set to 500 (from my Tamron mirror), the blurring was so bad it took me a while to work out what was happening. I couldn't initially understand why I was getting shake with a 28mm in the first place.

John.

Just looking at a P6x7 lens cap:

'Takumar lens for Asahi Pentax' around the top.

'AOCo' logo in the centre.

'Asahi Opt. Co., Ltd.' around the bottom.

No wonder they simplified it.


John.

IIRC (or can find any in the loft) I think the contemporary size for 110 prints was about 5"x3.5". Film speed setting on the cameras was very rudimentary too - but you should get 'reasonable' prints if everything works as it should.

John.

That's just corporate PR to complete the press release - they have give the 'why'. When Ricoh bought Pentax they could have done it then, but by doing it with a 'Pentax Ricoh' step, they have maintained brand continuity and associated the good points of both companies into Ricoh (which they're entitled to do and what their shareholders would expect).

John.

I don't think the change of the company name is hugely relevant, 'Pentax-Ricoh Imaging' is a horrible thing to stick on the display stands (I'm sure I've seen several). Branding of the cameras is a different matter but that's very unlikely to change. Obviously when Ricoh bought Pentax they needed to merge the two together to maintain continuity with the two names. It's not as if anyone is going to refer to the GR as the 'Ricoh Imaging GR' either.

As for the mount, what possible reason for changing it would there be? The K mount has proven to be adaptable from K->A->F->FA->FAJ->DA and does everything all other mounts do. Over the years Canon users in particular have said 'You have to have an aperture ring', nope, 'You can't have silent drive lenses', nope, 'You can't use shake reduction', nope... Look at CaNikons fragmented lens compatibility charts for an example!

Not only will all Pentax's K mount lenses work on the mount, but so will all of Ricoh's K mount lenses (you'd only lose their equivalent of KA functionality).

The history of Asahi-Pentax basically defined the development of the SLR camera, Ricoh would be mad to throw that away.

I was curious that there isn't any Pentax branding on my MX-1 (apart from the 'SMC Pentax Lens'), and is does have 'Pentax Ricoh Imaging Co., Ltd' on the bottom. Zoom forward to an online auction in 20yrs time:
"For Sale: Early Pentax Ricoh MX-1 camera (not to be confused with the later 'Ricoh' model), in black with the original brass top & bottom plates instead of the later plastic ones..."

John.

Hi Bernard,

I've used both (although not for photo related applications). They both have access to General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins through IDC type pins allowing connections using ribbon cables. Various interface boards are available for both allowing them to drive relays/switches/LEDs etc.

The Raspberry PI runs Linux and has access to GPIO through the Python langauge (and probably many others). It will also run a version of RISC OS and can give GPIO access through BBC BASIC. For each application you'd be able to simply run the relevant code and attach a suitable control board to the IDC pins (although I suspect you might need a keyboard, mouse & monitor to do so easily).

The Arduino also has access to GPIO through it's langauge and is probably better as a stand-alone device for this sort of thing. Programming it takes a few seconds through USB - the board includes it's own programmer. For different applications you probably want to re-program it and connect the right ribbon cable to it - or for a more elaborate project, program it with multiple applications

The Arduino comes as a board and includes the ATMEL chip. You are supposed to be able to buy just the chips separately and swap them in/out of the board if you prefer.

I'd go with the Arduino because as Matt says it works on a lower level and will simply start running when it powers up. All the PIC boards I've seen need RS232 ports to program - a pain these days and there's more support for Arduino on the web (it is supposed to be an open standard).

John.

Further update:
I've got the first results back (expired roll of Fujicolor NPS 160 - dated April 2006), processed and scanned commercially. The negs look good, the 1523x1228 scans obviously don't do them anywhere near justice (my 6x4.5 negs are scanned at the same resolution and they're almost half the area).

I've also shot several rolls of Provia 100 (yet to be processed) and all feels good at the moment. I'll be able to assess the trannies a bit better than the negs. The metering is reasonably close to my Sekonic L408B (either spot or incident), but as it is an 'averaging' meter, the technique is obviously slightly different.

I've only tried it handheld at high-ish shutter speeds (1/125th and above) so far with the 75mm lens. There's no immediate evidence of shake in the negs (8x loupe) but it's obvious when shooting that there's a lot moving around in the camera.

For those unfamiliar with the metering prism, the meter needle is displayed separately below the viewfinder frame in it's own 'window'. This is much better that it cluttering up the 'finder or losing the needle against parts of the subject which can happen with something like a K1000. A great idea.

John.