There is no known cure.

Sorry.



K.

I may have a plethora of old film bodies but the one I would keep above all others is my LX. I have a fair bit of LX related bits and pieces too, but not the famed AF400T... yet. I do have the AF280T with a flash bracket though and Ken sold me the special cable to connect to the front socket.

K.

Do I need to use a FED2 with an Industar-26m lens when I have an LX with a K50/1.2? No, but its fun. If I only had what I needed I'd be down to the K20D and a handful of zooms. As it is, photography is my hobby and I do it for fun. For me, and I realise that this isn't the case for everyone, part of that fun is using a swing lens Horizont, or my Horseman 5x4 view camera, or snapping a friend's child's birthday party with the K20D and my DA* 50-135mm lens. Thankfully, most of the old glass I own is holding its value and if there was ever a financial crisis I could sell them for at least what I paid for them, and in a few cases for a bit of profit.

K.

A nice ideal but not always achievable in practice. I have become addicted to square images and often visualize the crop as I take the image. Sometimes the lens isn't quite long enough, and you know you'll need to crop something out. With a 93% viewfinder you often get things in the edges that you didn't want. Sometimes you only have a split second to grab a shot which results in the need to trim something out. As a principle, it is an excellent one to try and aspire to (after all less cropping = more pixels which may equal better IQ...) but out of the studio it shouldn't be something that holds one back.

K.

Putting all one's eggs in one basket is dangerous whatever strategy one uses. I'm not sure it really matters what mixture of hard drives/DVDs/on-line storage etc. one uses as long as there are multiple copies in several locations which are regularly updated.

The one advantage of online storage as one of those places is the ability to access them from various locations. If you move about quite a bit (as I often do) having an online filestore can be a great help.

K.

I take your point, George. I don't have much experience of the Z series, especially compared to the earlier models. I have a Z20 that a forum member kindly gave me. I've been vaguely tempted by the Z-1p but not got one yet. My efforts have been towards trying to get a K2DMD at the moment.

K.

Kris' Guide to Pentax film cameras

K series
First K-mount cameras. Physically the same size as the M42 Spotmatics. K1000 an absolutely basic no-frills camera much used by students and beloved of the sackcloth and ashes brigade. Manufactured for quite some time. K2 top of the range and pricey. KX good compromise between features and price as well as being nice and robust.

M series
Small cameras bought out to try and reclaim the market from the likes of Olympus and their OM series. MX manual only and now very popular and as a result more pricey than the others. ME Super manual and Av and very very common and as such as cheap as chips. Doesn't stop it being a nice camera though. After all, it did win many awards in its time and in 1982 (when I bought mine) was top of the sales league table for many months. ME-F is an ME Super with focus confirmation (or AF with the dedicated 35-70 lens). Rest of the M series various varieties of Av only cameras, all cheap.

A series
Introduction of the A series lenses allowed the creation of programme and Tv modes. Both the top of the range Super A and slightly lower spec Program A are worth having. The A3 is notable for having Pentax's first built in motordrive and being pug ugly but is Av/P only.

LX
Top of the range professional camera body and system. Made for over 20 years. Wonderful, but expensive even now. Unless recently serviced, likely to suffer from "sticky mirror" syndrome.

P series
I've never owned one of these but they seem to be cheap and reliable. Varying degrees of automation (still manual focus) but all offer manual exposure mode. P5/P50 top of the range.

SF series
Built like tanks, ugly to my eyes, but with autowind, AF, LCD displays and all that sort of thing. Appear to be quite reliable. AF not exactly fast but quite accurate. I have one of each and although they don't get much use. Some sophisticated features like a three-shot self-timer. Bodies are cheap as chips and can barely be given away.

Z series
Very like the SF series in looks. Proliferation of modes and gadgets, buttons and screens. Introduction of powerzooms which allow for quirky (gimicky?) effects. Again, generally very cheap.

MZ series
Pentax reverted to a more classical styling from the chunky black lumps of the SF/Z series. Wide range of models. MZ-M manual focus only. MZ-S top of the range camera and still very expensive. MZ-?0 camera have mount limitations compared to the MZ-? models. MZ-7 and MZ-6 are popular as having the fewest limitations mount-wise. Known to suffer with a problem with a plastic cog in motordrive which can fail. This can be replaced by a brass cog but is often more expensive to do that buying a new camera.

*ist
The last of the Pentax film bodies. Lots of bells and whistles but apparently not many spares around.

Hope this helps.

K.

Sadly the quote for repair is over £150...

I would, but I already have one. Go on, you know you want to...

Wow.

K.