On 07/03/2013 9:14 AM, Darren Addy wrote:
I tripped across a cosmetically gorgeous LX body (FA finder) yesterday
and it seemed to be priced right, so I impulsively purchased it (long
distance). *After* doing so, I started doing a little research on it.
: )
It appears that I may have taken a bit of a gamble, since it looks
like a lot can go wrong with these things and a full CLA from Eric
(pentaxs.com) is going to run $160-200 (!). It won't arrive until next
Tuesday, so I have a lot of time to fret.
: \
I believe that I bought it reasonably enough that even if I did
nothing to it I could turn around and sell it for at least what I gave
for it, as it sits, so I don't think I have anything big to worry
about.
I'm hopeful that I can put in a mirror bumper pad and seals in the
film back (myself) and be good to go, but that remains to be seen. I
was hoping that those of you with an LX (or experience with them)
might tell me what sort of issues you had with them (if any) and your
impression of where the LX stands in the Pentax film body family.
Ah, the LX. A wonderful camera that may as well have been designed and
built by the Fiat car company.
So, what can go wrong with an LX?
Pretty much everything.
Other than the aforementioned rubber bumper that turns to goo, you can
have problems with ALL of the seals in the camera. The back door seals
can turn to jelly, as can the top mirror bumpers.
In addition to that, the aperture cam follower resistor is prone to
corrosion, as is the ISO resistor. (exemplified by really flaky
exposures in outomatic).
In addition, the TTL flash control is beyond useless in all but the most
controlled circumstances, useless to the point that although I owned
three of them, it was the K1000 that I used professionally at weddings.
I couldn't depend on the LX to fire the flash.
All three of mine went into the shop on a bi-yearly basis with something
or other wrong. The last time, I sent all three of them off in one box,
hoping against hope that they would get lost in the mail and I could
replace them with something else with the insurance money. Alas, it was
not to be, and eventually, they were all shipped back to me.
I love the LX, but I don't miss it.
bill
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