My name is Bruce (Not the Nikon guy). About 27 years ago, My father gave me a new Praktica SLR for my birthday. It came with a 50/2.0 lens and was a screw mount body. It had open aperture metering and a match needle much like a K1000. Incidentally, my Dad was a Canon man with an FTB body at the time.
I grew to love photography and manual camera systems. I shot mostly Ektachrome in those days. I spent two years in Japan and while there, decided to get a new camera. I ended up getting the brand new Canon A-1 with 35-70 zoom. This camera had everything at the time. Aperture, shutter priority, full program and metered manual. It was also the camera that almost caused me to quit taking pictures. I hated it! More than any other camera I have ever tried. There was nothing wrong with it except the way it worked and the way I wanted to work it did not match. I wanted a simple match needle style meter and this was as far from it as possible. So I sold it and got a nice, simple match needle camera - Olympus OM-1 with Zuiko 50/1.7. Now that was a camera! I loved it. It did everything that I wanted, the way I wanted. A few years later, I started shooting some theatre and found that I couldn't use the black match needle to do any metering. The subject would be in a spotlight, but the needle would be in the black area. So I started a search for a body that would behave like a needle (not scales and numbers), but be visible in dim/dark. That was when I found the MX. Much as I loved that Olympus, the MX was almost the same - good build, nice lenses, small, manual and I could see the LED's in the dark. I had just gotten married and was contemplating going into photography professionally (weddings, portraits). In the area I was in, Hasselblad was king. The type of gear you had made some impact on the clientele and I felt that I needed the most impact that I could afford (perhaps foolish on my part). The best impact name I could afford was Nikon in 35mm. They had a model very similar in style and handling to the MX which made me feel right at home. So I sold my MX to my brother (still has it and won't sell it back to me) and got a new Nikon FM. I also loved that camera and used it for quite a long time. I should say that my wife finally convinced me to pursue a more lucrative career path after a bit of a go. We were expecting our first child and I wanted my wife to be able to use and be comfortable with the camera. Try as I might, she did not want to learn about F stops and shutter speeds. The manual camera was just not going to cut it. So I started looking for a full program capable camera that would still handle like a match needle in manual mode (none of those scales and numbers stuff). Pentax had just released the SuperProgram at that point. I went to the store and handled it, worked with it and found the manual mode to my liking. I didn't like the Nikon offerings because of the style of viewfinder info. So I sold my FM and came back to Pentax in the form of a new SuperProgram. Years later (Wife starting using Pentax P&S's instead of SuperProgram) I was looking at the AF bodies and feeling like I wanted to go that direction. I looked seriously at a Canon Rebel, but just didn't like the feel or style of manual control. I looked at the ZX-10 that had recently been released and decided that I would stick with Pentax and have amassed equipment ever since. I went from ZX-10's to PZ-1p's to MZ-S's to finally a P67II. Each of these have been very satisfying to own and use. With a full range of primes and a few zooms I have been happy with my results and derive much joy and satisfaction out of this hobby that is rapidly becoming more of a business. In the past two years I have done many weddings and portraits/groups. I still have the ZX-10's, one MZ-S and the P67II. At this stage, the most used cameras are my little digital Coolpix 990 (snapshots) and the P67II. I almost never use the 35mm stuff unless I need the speed of AF (not very often). The MZ-S is mostly a backup for the 67II. I have half a mind to sell it and get a second 67II. Like Tom, I anticipate the move to digital (business oriented reasons more than personal) will have me ending up with a DSLR for much of the stuff I do and the P67II for the rest. Whether I stay with Pentax for the digital remains to be seen. I am not in any hurry, but won't get a Pentax DSLR if it is not a reasonable offering. Bruce
