Jason's 20 Greatest Cameras of all Time -- Hits? Missess ?

check out his just re-published list from 2018

Does Noteworthy always translate to Greatest?

Why not the Epson RD1 instead of the trouble prone Leica M9?

Why not the Konica Hexar RF as the first of the NON Leica M mounts?

Why not my favorite Canon SLRs - the T90 and RT?

The Pentax K1000? Really? Does best selling = Greatness?

Why not the Hasselblad V?

as the usual suspect greatest cameras duke it out among their fans ...

Stephen
 
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Boys, boys, boys - it's all about agreeing to disagree, and enjoying the debate. Let us not forget this.

So far, so good. Let's carry on!
 
Scrambler said:
Well, it seems to find a few turning points, misses a few - but most of these are picked up in the sequel list linked at the bottom.

This is a 2 year old list, though. And as I say there's an update based on the kind of responses already posted here - like including the iPhone.

For Pentax cameras, the original Asahi Pentax has got to be the pick. We often get our history reflected wrongly. Asahi had the Pentax 2 years before Nikon had the F, and there is nothing in the F that wasn't available elsewhere before. An SLR with interchangable prism and removable back? Exakta Varex/V 1950.

I kinda like the Asahi design/production process through the 50s and 60s. In many ways, they start with a Leica III and build a Pentax K- incrementally releasing versions 0.1 through 0.9 until they get the simple-to-use, fully-integrated SLR interchangable lens camera. The Pentax is a great step, but they were basically tinkering their way to greatness, and this starts before and continues after pretty much any point you chose through 2-3 decades. I own an S3 from 1961, but the models just before, or just after, are essentially the same with only some small change. Even the Pentax (AP) is just an Asahiflex with a couple of tweaks. An S3 is an AP with a single speed dial and refined aperture trigger. A Spotmatic is an S3 with a built-in meter, a self timer and a self-zeroing frame counter. I have jumped at least half a dozen models in this list!

The K 1000, however, is a Spotmatic in most basic form but with a K mount. It was a deliberately simple (and cheap) regression of the tinkering model. It isn't an historic camera.
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+1

Plus, i resent the inclusion of the Olympus OM. It was Pentax who made the first compact 35mm SLR camera; handle any pre-spotmatic Pentax. And their M42 lenses were tiny. But the object of desire for 35mm shooters was the Nikon F, big, heavy and bulky.

Yes, Olympus came in the 70s with the OM-1 (M-1) but the merit was only in marketing: to make compactness fashionable again in 35mm reflex cameras. Of course Pentax promply obliterated the OM system with the Pentax MX, ME, ME Super et al; which were (slightly) smaller, more reliable, more ergonomic, etc etc. Not to mention the LX...
 
madNbad said:
The K1000 is on the list because it’s just about indestructible. A few years ago there was an article by a high school photography instructor. At the beginning of the year, he handed out some Canon AE-1’s, Nikon FE’s and K1000’s. At the end of the semester, only the K1000 were still in working condition.
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If he had handed out Minolta SRT-cameras and Nikkormats, they would have fared better than the non-japanese-made K1000 cameras...
 
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