Comments interspersed with Mike's text, below: Mike Johnston wrote:
> I second that. Except the K1000 was a CHEAPENED Spotmatic that was literally > expected to last a year and a half or two years until the release of the M > cameras. But consumers wouldn't let it die. Sounds like the Ford Mustang. Remember the Probe? It was supposed to "replace" the Mustang... > As most here know, it became THE > camera for intro photo students, so much so that cameras stores in college > towns get runs on them in early Fall and re-buy a lot of them back again at > the end of the Spring. (It's kept the price on the used market high, too. No > other earthly reason for a K1000 to sell for as much as a good MX.) No kidding! Around here (Toronto) the K1000 sells in the used shops for about $300 Cdn and up. At the same time, you can get a decent Spotmatic SP for under $150, sometimes lots under. Ridiculous to pay that much for a K1000, imho. But, it has the reputation for being the ideal "student's camera". > From > what I've heard (from Keppler in _POP_), Pentax tried to kill the K1000 > twice or three times but couldn't--demand was too strong and dealers wanted > it. > > It was a bit of a mixed blessing for Pentax, I think, as it set Pentax in > most peoples' minds as a beginner or entry-level kind of camera. As soon as > students got "serious" they wanted to move "up" to a Nikon. (YUH.) > > It finally did die, because finally it became expensive to manufacture (even > in China) and just too under-featured for the price. As Shel said in an earlier post on this thread, they're still being made in China at some of the factories that Pentax used to source K1000's from. Mingco is one such brand. I think it's even called the K1000. It is pretty much identical to the Pentax, except it has led metering. > > > I sure wish Pentax would build a "classic" all-metal, manual-focus SLR as a > last gasp, like Nikon has done with the little FM3a. A modern Spotmatic with > a sparing amount of up-to-date features added in would be just a wonderful > thing. I agree, 't'would be nice, but at what cost? I couldn't see them being sold for less than $1000; probably lots more if it's going to have as much metal in it as a Spotmatic. And, there's no way they would do it with a screwmount, especially since Pentax hasn't made a screwmount lens for what, 20 years or more? And if it ain't screwmount, it ain't a Spottie!! If they did it in k-mount, it would be seen for what it is: an updated K1000. I think it worked for Nikon and the FM2/FM3, because there is some temporal continuity between the models. In addition, the FM2 wasn't seen (I don't think) as a "bargain" Nikon, but rather an all-mechanical backup to the F series - at least that's the way it was marketed by Nikon/portrayed by the photo press. regards, frank > > -- "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
