Pentax K1000 Returns!

Pioneer said:
I also find that first shot to be pretty wonderful.

This is one of the things I love about photography. You work, you prepare, you find a camera and lens you like, but for some reason nothing seems to work. But then, every now and then, one of your off the cuff shots will just reach out and gob smack ya. 😀
Click to expand...

Thanks Pioneer, I used an LX in aperture priority, the pic has been "stolen" because I feared the parents would have harassed me, so I just opened the diaphragm, changed focus and shot. I was quick and nobody noticed me.

I didn't expect to get that shot so well, and I was using a yellow filter, for portraits I usually prefer green ones because people don't look like ghosts like the not so nice lady that was dodging me in every way

Vics said:
Wow! Thanks for posting those. I need to take these babies to a car show this summer. Fun! Here's the pancake.
Venus by Vic Stewart, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Nice shot, very 80s in terms of colours, I would like to get a pancake but I already have too many K lenses, almost the entire system...and I would use it on a small camera like a MX, the K1000 already looks weird with the tiny M50 mm f2.

This is a self portrait of my 76 K1000 reflected on a mirror with a strange rough surface, I kinda like the effect:

2a8eo7b.jpg
 
K1000 "Super"

K1000 "Super"

The Pentax KM is nearly identical except all were made in Japan.
Useful extra features are self-timer and depth-of-field preview.
Curiously the KM often sells for less than its cheapened successor.

Chris
 
That is an interesting selfie. The textured and some kind of ghosting (slow shutter speed?) give it a dream-like quality. Very nice. As to lens choices, I think I may have told the sales guy what we were doing, and he probably guided me to those. I later bought the 2.8/28 and the 4/200. I don't know how much use they'll get. We'll see...
 
ChrisPlatt said:
The Pentax KM is nearly identical except all were made in Japan.
Useful extra features are self-timer and depth-of-field preview.
Curiously the KM often sells for less than its cheapened successor.

Chris
Click to expand...

And not just the KM, usually also the K2s fetch a lower price and even the KX, when I was looking for an early brown K1000SE on ebay I've seen some crazy prices, in the range of a Nikon F2 or a Canon F1!😱

Another good alternative is the Spotmatic F that was the predecessor of the KM (plus shutter lock like the KX), it's slightly smaller and lighter, allows open wide metering and from a mechanical feel it's even more refined than the K series.

Vics said:
That is an interesting selfie. The textured and some kind of ghosting (slow shutter speed?) give it a dream-like quality. Very nice. As to lens choices, I think I may have told the sales guy what we were doing, and he probably guided me to those. I later bought the 2.8/28 and the 4/200. I don't know how much use they'll get. We'll see...
Click to expand...

No all the strange effects were created by that mirror that was placed outdoors in front of a shop (I think), I remember it had just stopped raining and I think it was also broken, so the reflection was weird,as you said dreamlike and I thought it would have been a good idea for a shot.

If they are M lenses I have both, I don't consider them stellar performers but they are decent for these focal lengths:

2m3s7wm.jpg


For this one I used the K1000, a pity I didn't have the yellow filter, without it XP2 looks pretty washed out.

zy8zdj.jpg


This one has been taken with the M200 mm f4 and the K2DMD.

Personally as wide angle I prefer the K24mm f2.8, whose DOF is so deep that makes focusing unnecessary:

20zwepi.jpg
 
Well, at age 70, I've accumulated a camera store worth of gear, and looking at the pics from the K1000 with just 40 and 85mm, I think I've come to my comfort zone.
I, too, like the 24, which I have in Minolta AF and Nikon ai.
 
I'll be sending my wife's old K1000 to Eric soon for its first-ever service.
It's working fine now but I'd like it work just as well twenty years on.

In a recent Pentax Forums interview Eric mentioned that he is training an apprentice.
If it works out this is very good news! I look forward to sending her something to practice on...

Chris
 
My first slr was a k1000 back in 1976/7. I still have the original brochure from back then!
There's 3 different top plates on standard k1000's as far as I can make out.
Early made in Japan ones with a small round cover on the top near rewind.
Hong kong ones with no cover but still chrome on brass and then chinese plastic ones.
The KM is my favorite. I disliked the asa setting on K2's and the viewfinder of both it and the KX I find too busy so I sold them. KM and K1000 with bracket and needle is perfect set up for easy use.
 
We were a K1000 family; three that I know of here in the house and the grandparents had one too. Mine is a 1979-vintage SE with the brown leatherette. As far as I know, its the last remaining with a functioning meter! The other ones (all newer, hmmm) eventually had dead meters. I really need to haul it out for some exercise!
 
The K1000 was so widely known and used (e.g. schools and newspapers) that this makes it more recognizable than its upscale sisters, the KM and KX, and even sells for more on the used market! I think those who are aware of the differences, would be smart to choose a KM or KX over a K1000. There certainly aren't as many of those around...

I have a K2 and a K2DMD, at the top of this little 4-camera lineup, though I believe they use a different chassis than the other K models. Interestingly, the K2DMD takes the same motor drive unit as my Spotmatic MD.

Cool to get your own K1000s back after their time away, so enjoy! (and keep that lens cap on to save the battery...)
 
Just finishing another roll of Street Pan 400 through my trusty old K1000 SE. Looks identical to the one in Wulfthari's photo. Once in awhile I have to reattach the brown covering around the front and at the hinge. Don't remember having to do that with the black ones.

I have an old Spottie as well but I can't tell if it is any tougher than my K1000 or not. Neither have broken yet so I have to assume they are both built to the same standard.

From that era they were all pretty nice cameras.
 
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There is something about the simplicity of the Spotmatics and K1000 cameras. Wind the film to the next frame, focus, meter, (swing the metering arm to the middle) shoot. Done. And those early Pentax lenses were superb. I started collecting the screw mount ones (which also worked fine on the bayonet cameras with an adapter) and ended up with most lenses in their line up. Some I owned two or three times over to try out the different versions of them. Some nice images here incidentally all displaying the certain something that those lenses had.
 
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