Remember when SLRs used to be SMALL?

sitemistic said:
Olympus made a run at the professional market with the OM1 and OM2. I knew a few of the pro's who went that route with Olympus' blessings when these cameras were current. Despite the fact that they are really great cameras, they simply didn't hold up to the battering and abuse pro photojournalists dish out.

One problem, as you pointed out with the Pentax MX, is that there is a cost to pay in small and light and affordable. It didn't take much to beat them up pretty bad, and they simply didn't stand up to mechanical wear like the Nikons and Canons of the day. We regularly shot the shutters out of Nikons then, so OM1's just couldn't hack it.

I don't think it took Olympus long to figure out that their market was more "prosumer" as we would call them today than the true professional PJ. But they did some cool ads pitching it to pros for awhile.
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Personally, I think they made the home run with the OM-4T(i). Check the abuse of an OM-4T(i) at:

http://brashear.phys.appstate.edu/lhawkins/photo/crash-test.txt

This doesn't seem to be indicative of a fragile camera to me (I also own one 😎 ).
 
My SLR is an all manual (why do they call these things "student" cameras?), black Cosina-made, Vivitar branded, K-mount V3000S. It was much less expensive than what was around at the time of purchase - about $100 (with 50/1.7 kit lens) circa 1990 from K-Mart. As much as I loved having a "real" camera, I secretly lamented that it wasn't one of the bigger, more sophisticated "name" models.

Now?

I love the fact that it's small, light, and fully manual. Split prism finder, shutter from B to 1/2000. It's maybe a touch bigger than the Olympus OM models. With the 50/1.4 Super Tackumar it's really a nice compact kit. And it's much, much smaller and certainly lighter - don't care what anyone says, than any DSLR I've ever seen out there. This camera is still being made and is still available on Amazon believe it or not.
 
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peterm1 said:
The impact must have been minor but it still left a deformed pentaprism housing. The camera worked but no longer looked purty. I think this was not all that unusual an experience. Yep nice cameras but treat them with kid gloves if you want to keep them in good nick. I am kinda thankful for big cameras made formt hat horrible but resilient stuff, plastic.
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Not me! If a chrome or black metal bodied camera was heavily used, you see it from outside. With the plastic bodies, you will see nothing serious, but maybe they break later.
I have about a dotzen chrome bodied Pentax SLRs from Pentax 1957 to MX, use them all (except for one with a sluggish shutter) and don't handle them with gloves! Of course the metal covers weren't made so thick to make the whole camera heavy, but they aren't thin either. If they get a nick in use, well that's business for a user camera...
 
peterm1 said:
While I like them very much one problem with both the MX Pentax and Olympus cameras is that they are a little fragile. I had been warned of this but found out myself the hard way when my mint MX being carried in an ERC over my shoulder swung (lightly) against a door frame as I walked thru it. The impact must have been minor but it still left a deformed pentaprism housing. The camera worked but no longer looked purty. I think this was not all that unusual an experience. Yep nice cameras but treat them with kid gloves if you want to keep them in good nick. I am kinda thankful for big cameras made formt hat horrible but resilient stuff, plastic.
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I've had 3 Pentax Mxs over my time. They've been dropped onto stones at the Acropolis, banged not doors etc. However, they have been unfailingly reliable. With a cloth shutter and battery required only for metering, there is very little to go wrong. I still have a MX, which I will let my 6 year old son use. He's into photography and comes into the darkroom with me.

I still use my MX from time to time. It's a lot lighter than my M6/M2 and is a featherweight compared to my R9/DMR.

Charlie
 
The prism dent is interesting. It is very rare to find a Pentax LX without a dent in the prism housing. Having sais that, although I try not to "abuse" my cameras, my first LX has had quite a life. Several when I forgot it was in my bag on the aircraft, it got thrown (or the bag was) into the aircraft, out of it etc. Despite that I have never had a problem with it apart from having it serviced every 15 years!.

Kim
 
NickTrop said:
My SLR is an all manual (why do they call these things "student" cameras?), black Cosina-made, Vivitar branded, K-mount V3000S.

I love the fact that it's small, light, and fully manual. Split prism finder, shutter from B to 1/2000. It's maybe a touch bigger than the Olympus OM models. With the 50/1.4 Super Tackumar it's really a nice compact kit. And it's much, much smaller and certainly lighter - don't care what anyone says, than any DSLR I've ever seen out there. This camera is still being made and is still available on Amazon believe it or not.
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Of course it's still being made. You can also buy it branded as Nikon FM-10. It's the same camera with Nikon F AI-s bayonet. Cosina has made the same camera for at least 20 years. It's based on the much older M42 mount Cosina 1000, later 4000S, which on the other hand was based on the Cosina Hi-Lite. The shutter was later improved to include the 1/2000 setting, which the original vertical travel Copal metal square shutter did not have, but other than that, improved split image focusing screen and open aperture metering with K and F bayonets the design has not changed much in more than 35 years... I own a Cosina 4000S and its a very solid all mechanical camera. Not as smooth as Pentax or Nikon mechanical models, but still pretty good.

It's called a student camera, since it's assumed that "real photographers" want to use some kind of AE, AF and motor drive these days. With digital you even get the former two always and motor drive is of course not needed. Manual exposure is only for learning the basics of exposure, after which you start to use aperture or shutter priority or perhaps even full program AE with multi-segment (matrix) metering, and naturally you also want to take at least 3 frames per second... Nothing wrong with those of course and they make some forms of photography much easier.
 
I must admit I thought "student" cameras were known as such because they were cheap enough to be afforded by students. Prime example was the Pentax K1000.

Kim
 
Kim Coxon said:
I must admit I thought "student" cameras were known as such because they were cheap enough to be afforded by students. Prime example was the Pentax K1000.
Kim
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That was certainly one of the reasons, but back in the day when used non-collectible film cameras still actually cost something, you could still buy an older used camera for about the same price as a new "student camera". However, old school photography instructors preferred manual exposure only so that the students would learn about reciprocity and other basics of exposure. With digital I imagine that must be a thing of the past.

The Pentax K1000 was not really that simple when first introduced in 1976. It was just a simple low-cost all mechanical camera for amateurs and people with limited budget without any connotations of student use. All major SLR manufacturers still had inexpensive metered manual exposure cameras in their line-up at the time. The K1000 just outlasted many of its contemporaries such as Nikkormat FT-2/FT-3 and Canon FTb-N and became a "student camera" in the 1980s.
 
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What, no Exakta comments ?

What, no Exakta comments ?

My first SLR was/ is a Minolta XG-1 that I picked-up at a rummage sale for $50.

It came with a motor-drive, the 1.4 and 1.8 50mm lenses, a 28mm WA, a 100-200mm Rokkor Zoom, a Soligor 300-500 macro-zoom, several flashes, some extension tubes, and a few other goodies.

It seems representative of the "1980's bulky SLR". Heavy too.

I can't wait to find an OEM body-case, less motor-wind, and leave that boat-anchor at home.


My second (and user) SLR is a 1955 Exakta VX II, prism finder, with 50 mm CZJ Tessar; I also have Soligor 25 mm and Schacht Travegon 135 mm lenses.

The Exakta has a "blocky" footprint, due to the body design, but doesn't strike me as being any heavier or bulkier than the XG... (it's mostly hollow...)


Perhaps the Ekakta does not qualify as a "modern" SLR for purposes of this discussion...😉

It's funky, it's slow to operate, and there aren't many "fast" lenses to fit it...

But, it takes a decent picture...


Luddite Frank
 
The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee has an excellent photogrpahy class where the students are reqired to use maunual film cameras for traditional b&w. Also traditional darkroom printing is taught. Each student gets his or her own enlarger, and they work on each print using darkroom methods until the instructor passes it. Just one example.
 
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