I've never owned one but it is an interesting prospect. I think I'd probably go for a 67 though if I wanted a Pentax medium format camera. At the moment I use my Lubitel 2/Yashicamat 124G/Moscow 5 for MF.

Cheers, Kris.

The only thing you need worry about is the glass takes on a yellow tinge. That can be corrected by leaving the lens in UV light, normally in sunlight for a few days. It is only a problem with a small number of high end Takumar lenses such as some of the 50mm f/1.4 lenses.

K.

It is one of the rarer early Pentaxes and a pain to find for the simple reason that entering "Pentax K" in a search engine turns up one or two items... I've been hoping to find one for the poor reason of my name, but Bob has had better luck than I.

Kris.

Thinking of buying...

Any guesses as to the going rate for these? No completed sales on ebay to give me a clue.

Thanks, Kris.

One of these you mean? Not sure how many were made but I think they were display items for dealers. After all, a see through film camera isn't very functional!

Was it for sale?

Cheers, Kris.

I'm going to have to buy some lottery tickets... Some very nice glass there. Good luck with the sale.

K.

One fears this may have been posted in the wrong forum...

I've have one of each (in fact I have a second ES I'll be selling) and they are so different it is difficult to compare really.

The ES is a lovely, solid, metal bodied M42 camera. It doesn't have a self-timer (you'll have to find an ESII for that) and although there are manual shutter speeds on offer (which work without batteries) there is no metering in manual. It works best with S-M-C/SMC Takumar lenses as they allow the camera to use open aperture metering. Older Taks and other M42 lenses without the extra bits to the mount require the use of stop down metering as with the older Spotties. The light meter is surprisingly accurate for an early Av mode camera, and exposure compensation is available. I am extremely fond of my ES, and use it quite often. I have taken to using the black ES for monochrome film and the chrome ESII for colour film. The biggest weakness of both models is the early electronics. Eric Hendrickson in the US has the world's last spare electronics for these cameras. I took a punt on a broken ESII in the hopes he could fix it, and he did. It works perfectly now.

The SF7 is a different beast altogether. It has autofocus, automatic film advance, various autoexposure modes. It is from the "pug ugly" period of Pentax cameras including the SF series and the Z series. The flash is offset near the shutter button and the top of the pentaprism has the LCD display. I have an SF7, SFX and SFXn and they are all fairly similar. Like modern dSLRs they are hard to manually focus with the standard screen although, to be frank, the ESes are not easy either when one is used to the delights of an MX. Despite being plastic, they feel sturdily built. I only have the one F series lens so tend to only use one of them.

Perhaps the biggest difference is the price. The SF series are as cheap as chips and fairly hard to give away whereas a good working ES will still command a moderate price.

If I had to choose one or the other, I would probably go for the ES. Did I say I love mine?

Hope this helps, Kris.

If you have a sentimental attachment to that MV1 and really want a nice clean screen, try sending it to either Harrow Technical or Asahi Photo (both come up with a google search). It'll cost you more than the camera is worth commercially but sometimes commercial worth is not the only thing by which we judge value. You'll get a nice CLA (clean, lube and adjust) at the same time, and the camera will serve you well as a result for many more years to come.

K.