Why didn't Pentax ever make a rangefinder?

Keith

Keith

The best camera is one that still works!
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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? :p


pentax%20r1a.jpg
 
Because they never needed to? Why take a step backwards when you're already selling all the SLRs you can build?

By the looks of things, everyone bar a few loonies like us packed away their rangefinders with a great sigh of relief and embraced the SLR as soon as it became an affordable reality.
 
Wasn't Pentax named after the pentaprism? I don't know if that is true but if it is rangefinders aren't really what they wanted to make in a high end- type camera. Seems like Pentax likes mirrors that move!
 
If pentax would make a digital rangefinder I would buy it. They seem to make quality products with decent pricing. I havent owned any of the old slrs but the k20d and k7 were great for the price.
 
I actually use a Takumar SMC 28mm 3.5 and a Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 on a Fed2 by way of a step up adapter. They work quite well, especially the 28mm since the DOF is so broad. the Tak lens take beautiful photos.
 
Pentax MX + SMC Tak 50/1.4 is the SLR equivalent to a M6 with 50'lux for a fraction of the price.

The Pentax is lighter, the MX body is smaller than the M6 but with lens it's a wash.

They sold millions (over 3M) K1000s at a time Leica almost went bankrupt! Leica has likely sold well under 1M M bodies since 1954.
 
I would say it's because they came into the market at the time that rangefinders were on the wane, so why bother? They were too busy developing the SLR concept to worry about older technology. But think of the cameras they could have built. I doubt they would have been Leica/Contax clones, like all the other Japanese manufacturers were making. Look at an Exacta, then look at the first Pentax cameras. I must say, if they had done a rangefinder, it would have been a tour de force style wise.

PF
 
Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a copy of a secret prototype of a full-metal rangefinder in the underground vault with Asahi on the nameplate somewhere in Japan :)
 
They were busy making half frames, 110, 35mm, 645, 6x7, and finally digital 645. The rangefinder is going to have to sit another round out on the Pentax team.
 
When they chose the name Pentax, the path to making rangefinder camera died, I guess. :D

Oh wait, then why Fuji Film making digital camera??
 
farlymac said:
I would say it's because they came into the market at the time that rangefinders were on the wane, so why bother? They were too busy developing the SLR concept to worry about older technology. But think of the cameras they could have built. I doubt they would have been Leica/Contax clones, like all the other Japanese manufacturers were making. Look at an Exacta, then look at the first Pentax cameras. I must say, if they had done a rangefinder, it would have been a tour de force style wise.

PF
Click to expand...

Develop they did....
The 1st SLR with an instant return mirror.
It swept the world over, and became the SLR standard to this day!
 
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!
Click to expand...

Bingo. They put all their eggs in the developing SLR market (right down to the company name), which from a business standpoint made absolute sense.

No single camera company has ever been all things to all people: Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Olympus concentrated on 35mm; Minolta, Konica, Yashica and (for a while, anyway) Mamiya straddled the fence between 35 and MF; none of these firms went larger, format-wise, while a few of them did go smaller. (Yes, Nikon made LF lenses, but that was all.)


- Barrett
 
Good point, perhaps for the same reason Asahi never made a rangefinder - Nikon and Canon were making a profitable line of SLRs that went out the door as fast as they could manufacture them.

Pentax, of course, did venture into the medium format. Their 6X7 looks like a Spotmatic on steroids. I borrowed my friend's once and people would look at this strange camera and ask it was a real camera or a toy camera. It never really caught on, however; I think Pentax intended it for pro use, and some pros did buy it, but it didn't have the panache of a Rollei, Hasselblad, Bronica, Kowa 6, Gowlandflex, etc., and couldn't catch up.

I got my first Pentax in 1963, an H1a, then an H3v, and finally Spotmatics and I still have four bodies and something like 10 Super Takumar lenses. No Pentax has ever malfunctioned or quit on me and the glass is as good as anyone's. If Pentax released an RF I'd buy one tomorrow just to have one. I'd probably use it also.
 
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!
Click to expand...

Pentax was not the first slr with instant return mirror. I think that feature first appeared in a Hungarian SLR made perhaps a decade before the Pentax's jumping mirrors debuted.
 
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