> Geez, Mike. You want incredible quality, you want it brand new in the > box, and you want it cheap, too? You *have* to be a Pentax user. :)
Chris, Well, I take the smilie and I get your point, but, seriously, I _was_ talking about the FM3a, which is a "manual, mechanical, metal" classic SLR that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I've always liked the idea of an LX, just couldn't afford them before they were discontinued. BR was the one who suggested an F3, and they're just way too expensive for what I can spend (or for what you get). All the camera companies have done this with older mechanical SLRs. They control the outflow of NOS (new old stock) by pricing. Canon did it (not terribly successfully, actually) with the old "New" F-1n, after the switchover to EOS--the faster the old FD bodies sold, the more they raised the price to slow the sales. The motivation there is simply that the company knew that as soon as the stock of NOS cameras was depleted, that was the end of the game, and they wanted to be able to say that the camera remained current for as long as possible. So they "conserved" remaining resources by raising prices and slowing sales. Olympus did the same thing with the OM-4T, which was in the $400+ range when I first became aware of it, had risen to $600+ by the time I bought mine in 1994, and reached $1,000+ by the end of its lifespan. This is just a delaying tactic. It's a way to keep old products nominally "current" without having to make more of them. I'm sure part of the high price of the F3 is because the last batch was significantly more expensive to produce than even the next-to-last batch, much less earlier runs. But it's also partly because Nikon would rather not sell them, to make the last stock technically "available" for as long as possible. Despite this, the F3 is not a modern camera. It has an old shutter with a low sync speed and various other hallmarks of high 1980s style. Same thing with the LX. The FM3a is at least a re-engineered version of the old FM-style body--it's got a new shutter, a modern meter sensor, the latest kind of screen, and little touches like the film-view window that is characteristic of recent cameras. A Pentax camera would probably be better. It would have more of the Spottie-->KX-->K1000-->MX-->LX DNA and that would be a good thing. But what was the last "MMM" camera that Pentax introduced? Was it the LX of 1980? I don't know my Pentaxiana well enough to know. One of my sources at Pentax has noted many times that despite the comments on this list, the plain fact is that nobody was buying the LX new for a long time prior to its discontinuation. It was indeed just too expensive for the features it offered. Even diehard LX fans either already had their cameras or would buy used. My Pentax friend has told me many times that "people say they want manual-focus bodies and then don't buy them." Even the FM3a is not selling well to Nikonians. Granted. I'm honestly not sure if I could afford to buy an updated MMM body if it cost $700+, and I'm honestly not sure Pentax could even offer an MMM body for $400+ in this day and age. But the fact remains, that's what I need. --Mike
