Pentax ME Super help

[mrjr]

I just bought a lovely little ME Super from a local guy, loaded up some film, took 14 shots, and went to advance the film, and the advance lever is somehow stuck. Specifically, I cannot get it to move beyond the ~30º "ready" position.

What gives? Is the advance mechanism broken? Any suggestions?

 

[Dan Daniel]

Hmmm... best to my knowledge the wind mechanism on an ME Super is purely mechanical. But it could be tied to the shutter cycle, I guess.

The mirror did come down, yes? Meaning that the shutter did cycle? You can move the dial around the shutter release to M by depressing the button while rotating.

If the shutter appears to have cycled, you could press the rewind button on the bottom and rewind the film a bit. Then (lens cap in place) see if it releases and lets you wind forward.

(Remember that the exposure mechanism will lock up the shutter for some time if you fire the shutter with the lens cap in place and the dial set to A.)

Beyond thingsl ike this, I cn't say much else. The go-to guy for Pentax is Eric Hendrickson- http://pentaxs.com/
Drop him an email and describe what is going on. He might have an answer. He does excellent repair work at very fair prices. He's overhauled both of my ME Supers, my favorite SLR these days- nice metering, nice feel, etc.

 

[mrjr]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Yeah, the shutter cycled. The meter is working, which indicates the batteries are still fine. Advance and shutter are locked up.

Beginning to think a repair or return are in order. Thankfully, the seller bent over backwards to let me know that he'd make it right if for some reason something wasn't working after a week.

 

[Dwig]

I just bought a lovely little ME Super from a local guy, loaded up some film, took 14 shots, ...

There are a number of reasons why this might happen. The shutter cocking may have a fault, the wind gears may have a fault, but based on my quarter century working in camera stores helping customers with simiilar issues the most likely cause, statistically, is that the camera was loaded with a 12 exposure roll and you've simply hit the end of the roll. Rewind the film and see if the wind is still blocked/jamed.

 

[cmc850]

Dwig - hoping for the OP's sake it's your ingenious suggestion he has come to the end of the roll! Having dealt a bit with older Pentaxes, this also makes sense as the wind mechanisms are pretty robust - it's stuck mirrors you generally see as things get gummy.

 

[mrjr]

Haha. Sadly for my Pentax, but happily for my pride, it has nothing to do with the film I loaded (that would have been embarrassing!). Neither is it a problem with the film transport, as the take up spool and advance gears turn freely as they should (I removed the film and opened it up). Think that leaves the shutter cocking mechanism, right?

 

[Lawrence Sheperd]

Unfortunately the Pentax ME and ME Super are very prone to this jamming problem (well-documented on the 'net.) Sometimes related to wind-on and shutter cocking linkages at the bottom of the mirror box and, as cmc850 pointed out, sometimes related to deteriorating foam around the mirror box which becomes a gooey mess and basically glues the mirror mechanism in place, which somehow affects the cocking mechanism.

I've owned three MEs that developed similar problems. I opened up the first two with no success due to their diminutive dimension. Didn't even try to repair the third myself and didn't send them out as their combined prices were much less than the cost to repair one of them.

Shame, because they are nice cameras when they work...

 

[mrjr]

Great info, Mr. Shepherd.

Trying to decide whether to pursue repair on this copy or to play the eBay lottery, because, as you point out, they definitely are nice cameras.

 

[Steve M.]

They're cute little cameras, but I never warmed up to the way you had to change shutter speeds on them. They're also quite old, so you need to be careful who you buy from. If it were me, I'd return it and buy something else. The link below gives some great reviews on other Pentax manual focus cameras. KEH is a good way to go if you're in the states because of their return policies and excellent customer service, but if you're careful, fleabay will work. I once owned a K1000 w/ the ubiquitous 50 2.0 lens and it took some nice photos. In fact, that was the second "real" camera that I ever owned. Moving to the 50 1.7 lens was a nice upgrade. From what I could see, the standard 50 2.0 lens was optimized for close to medium range work, the 50 1.7 was better at nearly everything else. Here's a shot I took many years ago w/ the 50 2.0 w/ fake B&W film and drugstore processing. Nothing special, just a quick grab shot of the 'ol lady, but man, that Hilo cafe had some great light in it.

Having said that, I prefer my Nikon FG w/ an AI'd H 50 2.0 lens to the Pentax system quite a bit.

http://www.pentaxforums.com/camerareviews/pentax-manual-focus-film-slrs-c12.html