Why didn't Pentax ever make a rangefinder?

So if the reason pentax doesn't make RFs because of the pentaprism lets have a look at all their compact cameras and the X90 with their pentaprisms and everything 😀

Btw, i think pentax comes from pentaprism + X the flash sync. right?
penta+x?
 
There was a print advertising campaign at the time Pentax released the Pentax MX, their diminutive sized manual focus SLR....along with a series of SMC-M Lenses which were a downsizing of their most popular focal lengths. These lenses although smaller than their SMC counterparts tuned out to sometimes be optically inferior to the regular SMC Pentax lenses. In the print advertisements, it showed a picture of an Mx and lens next to a Leica M rangefinder with lens, comparing size. Text of the ad extolled the virtue of the small size MX vs. the Leica M rangefinder. I'm not sure, but they may have also mentioned how quiet the MX shutter was (which it was). Except for the Olympus OM1, this was the closest a SLR came to resembling some of the reasons people were attracted to rangefinders at the time.

Dave (D&A)
 
D&A said:
There was a print advertising campaign at the time Pentax released the Pentax MX, their diminutive sized manual focus SLR....along with a series of SMC-M Lenses which were a downsizing of their most popular focal lengths. These lenses although smaller than their SMC counterparts tuned out to sometimes be optically inferior to the regular SMC Pentax lenses. In the print advertisements, it showed a picture of an Mx and lens next to a Leica M rangefinder with lens, comparing size. Text of the ad extolled the virtue of the small size MX vs. the Leica M rangefinder. I'm not sure, but they may have also mentioned how quiet the MX shutter was (which it was). Except for the Olympus OM1, this was the closest a SLR came to resembling some of the reasons people were attracted to rangefinders at the time.

Dave (D&A)
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I seem to recall this. The size of the MX, along with the system capabilities offered by the LX, compelled me to switch from Canon to Pentax in 1981. My early-adopter experience with the LX was an unqualified disaster, with multiple breakdowns of both bodies (a mirror-box lock-up problem no one could figure out until months after I traded the system off, in distress, for a Nikon F3-based setup in early '82). The MX, on the other hand, was a reliable little jewel. Don't recall just how "quiet" it was, but I don't recall it making much of a racket. Paired with an SMC-M 40mm lens, the thing was (jacket) pocketable, and, optically-speaking, wasn't bad at all. I did have a 28mm SMC-M that was a bit of a stinker in terms of barrel distortion, however.


- Barrett
 
Barrett, sorry to hear about the LX debacle. I'm not familiar with that model, but my MX has been completely reliable, as have all my old Spotmatic SP's. Dave wrolte that the SMC-M lenses were "to sometimes be optically inferior to" the larger SMC lenses. This is the first time I've heard that. My M lenses seem as good as my SMC and earlier just plain Super Takumar lenses. I'll check in with my Pentax forum folks for more M lens info.
 
Pentax lost me as a customer when they wouldn't stand behind my lemon LX. Constant problems with the electronics meant their repair people had it almost as long as I did. When the warranty expired, they basically told me: "Too bad."

Always liked the optics, though, and my KX was a workhorse.
 
I've never heard anyone speak ill of the Screw-mount Pentax or the lenses.

I have an idea that Asahi correctly sized-up the camera market after the war, and wisely decided to go in a direction that none(?) of the other Japanese camera makers were looking at...

Why bother trying to develop another Rf camera when Leica, Contax, Nikon, and Canon pretty-much had the market cornered ?

At the time, the only "serious", successful SLR was the Exakta...
 
bizarrius said:
Btw, i think pentax comes from pentaprism + X the flash sync. right?
penta+x?
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Nope. They licensed the name from Zeiss Jena (VEB Pentacon), along with M42 mount. As conceived by the Germans, it stood for 'Pentaprism Contax'.
 
Luddite Frank said:
I've never heard anyone speak ill of the Screw-mount Pentax or the lenses.

I have an idea that Asahi correctly sized-up the camera market after the war, and wisely decided to go in a direction that none(?) of the other Japanese camera makers were looking at...

Why bother trying to develop another Rf camera when Leica, Contax, Nikon, and Canon pretty-much had the market cornered ?

At the time, the only "serious", successful SLR was the Exakta...
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That is a not an unintelligent summation (double negative on purpose).
 
varjag said:
Nope. They licensed the name from Zeiss Jena (VEB Pentacon), along with M42 mount. As conceived by the Germans, it stood for 'Pentaprism Contax'.
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Umm, no. Pentax stands for Pentaprism Reflex*. The Contax actually beat them to the Pentaprism, but they were all on their own for the auto-return mirror in an affordable mass produced SLR, hungarian one-hit wonders aside.

Pentax dumped all their R&D into lenses and SLR cameras. They came up with things that were seen for the first time on a japanese SLR: The pentaprism finder, the auto-return mirror, the rapid-wind lever, just to name a few. Rangefinder cameras would have been a bad idea...why enter a market at great expense that you know next to nothing about?

I don't know if the M42 mount was licensed from Contax, but I have read that the K-mount bayonet was supposed to be a joint venture between Pentax and Zeiss. An attempt to make a "standard" bayonet mount for all manufacturers. Zeiss bailed on them and Pentax went ahead with it.

*http://www.pentaximaging.com/history/
 
I've got a T-mount adapter marked "CS", which stands for "Contax Screw", and which we all know now as M42. When Asahi took the ball and ran with it, it became the most popular mount for a long while, until they developed their K-mount.

PF
 
Keith said:
It seems that a lot of manufacturers made rangefinders at various times ... some of the fixed lens types were made in their millions apparently.

The question of why Pentax chose to stay out of this market puzzles me because they're certainly a very accomplished manufacturer and while their SLR's (P67 aside) have never really appealed to me surely they could have been competitive in the rangefinder market.

Anyway, while googling I stumbled over this ... is this some April fool's joke or does/did this camera actually exist for real? The information attached to the pic claims that there was a brief collaboration between Pentax and Leitz which resulted in the shown camera ... but this is the internet right? 😛


pentax%20r1a.jpg
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Wouldn't it be nice if this was Pentax's Evil prototype 😀
I'm a long time Pentax fan and if they had a rangefinder I'd likely pursue one
 
unixrevolution said:
Umm, no. Pentax stands for Pentaprism Reflex*. The Contax actually beat them to the Pentaprism, but they were all on their own for the auto-return mirror in an affordable mass produced SLR, hungarian one-hit wonders aside.
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According to a book by Alexander Schultz called "Contax S, A History of the World's first 35mm Prism SLR Camera, Asahi bought the trademarked "Pentax" name from the East German camera manufacturer VEB Zeiss Ikon in Dresden about 1954. Looking backwards, it was not one of VEB's best decisions. Apparently Pentax originally derived from PENTaprism and contAX, before the East Germans lost the court battle with West German Zeiss to use the Contax name world wide.

That's per CameraQuest ( http://www.cameraquest.com/pentorig.htm ).

Pentacon was actually another abbreviation by the same people (PENTAprism CONtax), so it at least seems plausible.
 
DNG said:
Develop they did....
The 1st SLR with an instant return mirror.
It swept the world over, and became the SLR standard to this day!
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No.Gamma Duflex (1948), and arguably Praktina IIa when fitted with motor drive (1953). The Asahiflex IIb (1954) had an instant-return mirror but waist-level viewing only, knob wind, and a separate slow-speed dial. They didn't get it all together (pentaprism, lever wind, auto diaphragm, single shutter speed dial) until the Pentax S3, 1960, a year after the Nikon F.

Pentax has a dishonourable history of claiming 'firsts' that weren't, including multi-coating.

It always amuses me when people are caught out claming 'firsts' that weren't, and then try to belittle the actual 'first' as though it didn't count. Wrong. 'First' is 'first', and the fact that it was subsequently ripped off or re-invented doesn't detract from the 'first'. By all means say 'first commercially successful' but don't call it 'first'. In fact, the first patent for an instant-return mirror on a 35mm camera was Wrayflex, 1947, though the production camera was much watered down.

As for the OP's question, well, why didn't Rolls Royce make delivery vans (Daimler did) and why didn't Ferrari make limousines (Bugatti did)? The question comes parlous close to trying to prove a negative (logical negative, not photographic).

Cheers,

R.
 
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Back to the original post, the lens looks very much like the Pentax 43mm Ltd in LTM mount. (A lovely lens and one of my favourites but I'm biased) I suspect someone has been having fun putting on a Leica body and photoshopping it.

I would suspect that if Pentax did an RF it would be their own and not a copy 😉

Although I have heard of people having problems with the LX, I have had one from just after the introduction and it is still going strong despite having received a fair amount of abuse. The Lx's do need servicing every 15-20 years due to the "lazy" shutter problem but then they seem as good as new again.

Kim
 
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