Jumped into Pentax K-Mount

I'm a camera collector/accumulator and depending who you ask, hoarder. Honestly, I'm not that bad. A few months ago my brother Alex picked up a Japanese production Asahi Pentax K1000, the Volkswagen Beetle of 35mm SLRs, beloved by photography education programs everywhere as the learner camera. He loved the simplicity of it and the K1000 became Alex's knock around camera. Now long time readers know we are each other's worst enabler when it comes to camera gear and while I resisted jumping into a new lens mount I wound up with an Asahi KX which at a cursory glance looks just like a K1000 but with a much better light meter, self timer and depth of field preview.

Here's the ironic thing with the KX, it's cheaper than the K1000. I got mine for $65, a K1000 with lens in decent shape will set you back at least $180 Cdn. My camera pusher at Burlington Camera Joan explained, yes while there a mountain of K1000s out there, most of them are like old retired Ford Crown Victoria taxi cabs, run into the dirt and then some more.

I'm happy with my KX along with a SMC Pentax-M 50 f1.4 lens (insanely good glass) and a SMC Pentax 28 f3.5 lens for my wide angle. For everything else I have a K-mount adapter so I can use my old Super Multi Coated Takumar lenses for now. The camera works great, very intuitive and I was blown away at the quality of the negatives I got from it.

Camera: Asahi Pentax KX, SMC Pentax-M 50 f1.4 lens.
Film: Ilford Delta 100, HC110 B.

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Steel Pub Sign

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