Over the years, I have owned a variety of SLRs made by Pentax, Ricoh and Olympus, the companies which IMHO have made the nicest, best designed cameras for the kind of picture taking that I do -- scenic, still life and travel photography. The models I have owned are: Pentax KX, K2, MX, ME, ME Super, Super Program, P5, MZ-5, MZ-10, MZ-M and MZ-5n; Sigma SA-1, and Olympus OM-1, OM-10 and OM-2S.

Some general points of camera philosophy

The newer cameras offer the convenience of autofocus. As I have noted elsewhere, this is only useful for shots of moving subjects, such as people, but for really precise focussing it is still better to do it manually.

Starting in the early 1980s, small aperture zoom lenses became popular. In order to make the viewfinders bright enough to use these, manufacturers reduced the magnification of the viewfinder. For a given amount of light coming through the lens, the smaller the area over which it is projected in the viewer's eye, the brighter it appears. Magnification is a function of the eyepiece lens, and does not depend on the size of the prism. (However, in some recent cameras, "mirror prisms" have been introduced. These are lighter and cheaper, but aggravate light loss, leading to even smaller magnification to offset it.)

For someone who does scenic or still life photography with wide aperture lenses, the high magnification viewfinders of the older cameras are a big advantage, both for ease of focussing and the quality of composition.

Another important issue is exposure adjustment. Automatic exposure is often inaccurate, because it depends on the absence of backlighting and assumes that the object is approximately 18% gray. The matrix metering in the MZ series does a pretty good job of guessing about these issues, but it can't be depended on to be perfect for difficult shots.

A convenient mode of exposure adjustment is therefore quite important. Generally, the most convenient and quickest to use is automatic exposure lock. You just move in, or aim down at the ground if it is suitable, and lock the exposure on that. Relatively few Pentax models offer this feature. The next best approach is to just set the aperture and shutter speed manually. However, as noted, some Pentax models have an inconvenient system of buttons for setting the shutter speed.

All the models starting with the Super Program offer programmed exposure. Like autofocus, this can be a useful feature if you are in a hurry. However, I think it was mainly introduced for the benefit of people who wanted a "fully automatic" camera and don't understand exposure. The programs are not very smart. In bright sunlight, if you use ASA 400 film, they will shut the aperture down way past f/11, which degrades image quality.

Herewith, my comments on the specific cameras I have tried:

Pentax KX -- Introduced in 1975, it was somewhat heavy and bulky, but comfortable to hold. It had a very intuitive metering indicator in the viewfinder. You turn the shutter speed ring to move a blue pointer, which shows the shutter speed you have picked on a scale in the viewfinder. You match up the blue indicator with the meter's moving needle. This is much nicer to work with than the coloured LED's in the successor model, the MX. It was only in production for a few years, and quickly superceded by the MX, so good used ones are relatively rare and expensive.

Pentax K2 -- The auto exposure sibling of the KX, and like it large and heavy by Pentax standards. It had the very desirable feature of an actual shutter speed dial, which is rare on Pentaxes. In addition to its weight, it has two significant drawbacks: its ASA setting must be the most difficult of any camera ever made, and its first-generation electronic shutter is noisy and vibration prone. The camera gives a kick that is not solved by locking up its mirror (a feature it has), which no doubt degrades image quality at slow shutter speeds.

Pentax MX -- Introduced in 1977, it was a major downsizing of the KX, adding in interchangeable viewfinder screens but deleting mirror lockup. Actually, the MX has a sub-rosa mirror lockup, which you activate by a quick flick on the shutter release button. (To find out how to use the MX's hidden mirror lock-up feature click here.) It's a beautiful machine, the Leica of Pentaxes, and from some points of view the finest Pentax ever made. Of course, fully manual meter setting is inconvenient when you are in a hurry. On top of that the LEDs in the viewfinder for the meter are not as intuitive as a needle. More seriously, they are rather difficult to see in bright sunlight. Not only that, if you are an eyeglass wearer, the light leaking into the viewfinder on a bright day tends to throw off the meter, causing photos to be underexposed half to one stop, a serious issue when you are shooting slides. Non-eyeglass wearers can overcome these problems by using a rubber eye-cup. The cloth focal plane shutter is quieter and lower in vibrations than the electronic shutters on most other Pentax models. Along with the ME, it has the biggest and brightest viewfinder of just about any camera ever made.

Pentax ME -- The fully automatic sibling of the MX, it was much more popular and actually sold for more when they were first introduced. Having been one of the best sellers of all time, they are now very inexpensive on the used market, and a very good deal. They were well made and rarely give trouble. Their introduction was followed a few years later by the point-and-shoot camera, with the result that many of the original purchasers hardly used them at all. Therefore, it is easy to find nearly new ones selling for about US$80. One of the criticisms frequently made is that the ME is not a "serious" camera since you cannot set the exposure manually. However, the easy to use exposure compensation dial overcomes this problem for most purposes. One of the reasons why the MX and ME are so much lighter than their predecessors is that Pentax used much thinner sheet metal for the top plate. A slight bump will give a serious dent, and you see a lot of dented MEs and MXs. At the same time, they are very rugged internally. I have dropped an ME onto a concrete floor from 5 feet up, causing a big dent in the prism housing, but it kept on taking pictures without a problem. The real glory of the ME is the near full size, super-bright viewing screen. The film winding lever operates very smoothly, with a comfortable short throw. As a bonus, the shutter fires at 1/100 second even when the batteries are dead. Someone who is using print film, with a modicum of knowledge about the exposures needed in different kinds of light, can use the ME quite successfully without batteries. (The deeper significance of this is that even if the electronic circuits fail, the camera is still useable, instead of becoming a piece of plastic junk.) All in all, it remains a very useable camera, and between its low price and great viewfinder, it is clearly the best buy in Pentaxdom.

Pentax ME Super -- It came out about 1980, to meet the criticism that the ME could not be set to manual shutter speeds. To overcome this, it has two tiny buttons which you push to move the shutter speed up and down. First, you have to select manual on a tiny dial that is very hard to move. This is not a very convenient setup. Just having a shutter speed dial that you can turn directly to the speed that you want, as on contemporary Olympus models and the modern Pentax MZ-5, is much more convenient. So the ME Super can be set manually, but it is inconvenient, and you will rarely want to go to the trouble. For that reason, I don't think it's worth paying much more for an ME Super than a plain ME.

Pentax Super Program -- This came out about 1983, and continued the shutter speed buttons found on the ME Super, but it has a better selector dial and it also lets you see the shutter speed selected in an LCD window on the top. It added programmed exposure. With the lens aperture ring set on A, the camera will automatically choose a combination of shutter speed and aperture for you. Like autofocussing, this is convenient when you are rushed, but in careful picture taking you would want to set the aperture for youself to take into account the desired depth of field, etc. It added two other useful features lacking in the ME Super: depth of field preview and TTL flash with off the film exposure. The viewfinder is very bright, but the matte screen has been reworked and is less contrasty for focussing than in the ME. Unlike the ME and ME Super, the shutter on the Super Program does not work at all when the batteries are dead. The Super Program has a grip, which makes it nice to hold, and it is attractively styled. The ergonomics are generally excellent. BTW, Super Program fans like to claim that this is a metal camera. The top plate is actually chrome plated plastic -- not that there is anything wrong with that.) The Super Progam is the most technologically sophisticated of the mechanical wind Pentaxes.

Pentax P5 -- This is an upgraded version of the P3, with an LED screen and buttons for the shutter speed instead of a dial. It is very similar to the Super Program, except that it is slightly bigger and heavier, and doesn't look as nice. The one useful feature that it adds is an exposure lock button. The lower level models in this line, the P3n and P3t, are good, simple cameras that offer an actual shutter speed dial. On the downside, they have neither manual ASA setting nor exposure compensation dials. This whole line was not very popular, partly because it coincided with the introduction of autofocus lenses. The cameras are also a rather unattractive muddy gray color.

Pentax MZ-5 -- This debuted in 1996, and it took Pentax back to its tradition of compact, elegant cameras after a decade of bulky, clunky autofocus models. The M in the name is said to be a nod to the M in "ME" and "MX." (Of course, this is lost on US buyers, where this series is called "ZX" instead of "MZ." For "zero excess?") The MZ-5 is a beautifully designed, lightweight and compact camera, with the very desirable real shutter speed dial. It has the convenience of built in autoflash and autofocus which is useful for following moving subjects in bright light (but, let's face it, not really very accurate in dim light). It has the convenience of a built-in motor drive, so the film is always wound (but, of course, it leaves the camera a useless lump of plastic if you run out of batteries). It has spot metering, which is useful in some situations. There is good information in the viewfinder, including shuttter speed and aperture (when using F or FA lenses), but the LEDs are dim and hard to see in bright light. The one thing that really irks me about the MZ-5 and MZ-5n is that the viewfinder is so much smaller than in the ME. This is, of course, typical of all modern autofocus cameras, not just Pentax. The MZ-5n's focussing screen is actually not bad for manual focussing. However, when you are taking still-life pictures autofocussing is pointless anway, it is much nicer to use an ME instead.

Pentax MZ-10 -- Introduced around 1997, it had most of the features of the MZ-5, but it had a mirror prism and plastic lens mount (making the camera a featherweight, at about 350 grams). It lacks the convenience of a shutter speed dial. It generally takes excellent photos on fully automatic with its matrix metering, but attempting to deviate from automation makes it less convenient than with the MZ-5n.To set the shutter speed manually, you turn a selection dial and then push repeatedly on a switch around the release button (At least this is a large switch, much easier to handle than on the ME Super of Super Program). Exposure compensation is done in a similar way. On the plus side, it has something the MZ-5n lacks: a large top-mounted LCD which shows the shutter speed and aperture combination the camera will use, and you can turn this display on by pushing a button on the back, not just the shutter release. The MZ-7 is a slightly updated MZ-10 which has an exposure lock button. The MZ-10 is much preferable to the MZ-50 and MZ-30, since the latter two do not work with older Pentax K and M lenses.

Pentax MZ-5n -- An updating of the MZ-5 only two years later, to add in some missing features that Keppler immediately pointed out were missing from it: depth of field preview, exposure lock, and exposure bracketing. The first two are useful, especially exposure lock, but the latter is rather pointless on a camera of this type (it may be useful to pros who shoot thousands of slides for stock photography, but they would choose a camera much more rugged than this one.)

Pentax MZ-M -- This is a close runner up to the ME for the best Pentax bargain. It's a stripped-down MZ-5n without autofocus, built-in flash or matrix or spot metering. However, it has all the great ergonomics and controls of the MZ-5n: manual shutter speed dial, easy exposure compensation, exposure lock, and depth of field preview. It is remarkably light, 324 grams for the body including batteries, and goes to 434 grams and fits in your pocket with a 40mm f/2.8 lens. Sure, it doesn't have automatic flash or autofocus, which limits it in some situations, but for outdoor/ travel photography it is great. The one thing that it really lacks is the big viewfinder of the ME. Its viewfinder is actually quite bright, but its magnification is way smaller than the ME, which makes it harder to focus. On the plus side, its split-image central focussing area appears to be especially accurately calibrated. It has a plastic lens mount, which some people deplore, but I haven't had any problems with it. There is a traditionalist prejudice in favour of metal, but as noted in regard to the ME and MX, metal bends. I have come across used cameras with metal mounts that have bent, making the lenses very hard to remove, but I have yet to hear of a plastic mount that has broken or worn out. Some of the world's best bicycles are made of carbon fibre plastic, and if racers can go round corners at 60 miles per hour on plastic bikes, I'm sure it's strong enough for a camera. Good polycarbonate is extremely rigid, and will not deform, unlike metal. It can break under severe stress, but it will not bend out of shape. It is not as hard as metal, and it can wear down faster, but I think the lens mount is likely to withstand thousands of lens changes before this will show. The durability of the MZ-M / ZX-M can be seen in a report by one user at http://www.mail-archive.com/pentax-discuss%40pdml.net/msg79111.html.

Some members on the Pentax discussion list have mentioned a problem with their MZ cameras, of the film not always advancing enough, and occasional frames overlap slightly, but I have not had any malfunctions with any of the MZ cameras I have owned. Considering the small size and light weight of these cameras, the motors in them are not going to be as strong as in a Nikon F5, but they do seem to perform well as medium duty amateur cameras, which is what they are.

Sigma SA-1 (essentially a rebadged Ricoh XR-7; the main difference in the Sigma is a built-in grip, which makes it nicer to hold). It takes Pentax K-mount lenses, and offers a quality of design woefully lacking in Pentax cameras of its period. The viewfinder is large with great relief for eyeglass wearers. Shutter speed is shown by a moving LCD which looks like a needle. Aperture is shown using a little window, as in the MX. There is a real shutter speed dial. The exposure meter is turned on by touching a button on the front of the camera (it's just where your index finger naturally goes). This is much better than in Pentax cameras, where you have to partly depress the shutter button, and worry about not pushing it so far that the shutter goes off when you don't want it to. It has a real shutter speed dial. Best of all is the exposure lock button. It leaves the exposure locked for a good couple of minutes, unlike the 10 seconds offered in Pentax models. That 10 second period is often not enough to compose -- and you do have to compose after you have locked the exposure reading (since you are locking it by looking at something other than your final picture selection.) It's also a very attractive camera, with a deep black color and bold white lettering. Film loading is also a bit easier than on contemporary Pentaxes. The main downside is that the shutter is noisier than average.

Olympus OM SLRs

I have also dabbled in the Olympus OM system, which was a close competitor to the Pentax system, and had many similarities. It was the popularity of the Olympus OM-1 in the early 1970s that prompted Pentax to introduce the downsized MX and ME. For those of us who are Pentax afficionados now, it is a pity that the OM system has withered away, because it had many fine features in common with Pentax.

The OM-1 is a beautiful, all mechanical camera. Its cloth focal plane shutter is very smooth and quiet. Having appeared earlier, it was a much bigger seller than the Pentax MX, but the latter had a number of superior features, including having the shutter speed and aperture indicators in the viewfinder. The MX's viewfinder is also a bit brighter and less grainy looking than the OM-1s (but then again that may just be the result of looking through a dirty used screen on the one I had). The shutter speed dial on the OM-1 is easier to use, once you get used to its location.

The OM-10 was a contemporary of the ME and ME Super. It was a low-end camera, and it did not have quite the same quality of finish as the Pentaxes. It had chromed plastic top and bottom plates, which have proven very durable, and made the body a very light 430 grams. With its manual adaptor, the OM-10 has a very convenient shutter speed dial, which is much easier to use than the buttons on the ME-Super. Another nice touch is that you activate the meter by pushing a ring around the shutter button, instead of having to partly depress the shutter release as you do on the Pentaxes. The OM-10, like every other Olympus, has a depth of field preview button on its lens. The viewfinder is not quite as large and bright as on the ME, but still much better than on the MZ-M. The OM-10 was a huge seller, and it is one of the most common used cameras around, selling for peanuts on eBay. It's too bad that there isn't any Pentax camera just like the OM-10. The Sigma SA-1/ Ricoh XR 7 came closest.

The OM-2S was a contemporary of the Pentax Super Program, and it sold at the same or a slightly lower price (a 1986 issue of Popular Photography I have shows a B&H ad in which the OM-2S is $180 to the Super Program's $205), but the Super Program was obviously a much better seller. You can see used Super Programs everywhere, while the OM-2S is rare, and now much more expensive. The OM-2S had an excellent feature set, so it is surprising that it did not sell better. It has spot metering, interchangeable viewfinders, a quiet cloth focal plane shutter, and quasi mirror lockup (activated by the self-timer). It had a real shutter speed dial, and its shutter would work at 1/60th even with a dead battery. It is a very solid camera (and, as a result, weighs about 50 grams more than the Super Program). One area where it was a touch weaker, for those who value the program exposure feature, was that it did not show the aperture in the viewfinder that would be used in programed exposure. Olympus did not introduce a new lens line dedicated to programmed exposure. Instead, you just set a switch to program, and set the lens the smallest aperture you want to activate the programmed function. (It also gave you greater control, by limiting the aperture range.) This should have been seen as a bonus, since it allowed you to use your old lenses, but it may have looked more complicated to casual users, and appears to have backfired as a marketing move.

Subsequently, Olympus introduced a line of autofocus cameras in which it changed the lenses too much: it was the only brand that had lenses with no manual focussing ring on the lens at all. They forced you to turn a knob on the camera body (a system currently in use for the Contax G2 non-SLR cameras). This was a serious mis-step. Olympus lost interest, perhaps because its fixed zoom lens reflex cameras were good sellers, and essentially discontinued the autofocus SLR line. Today, they still make the very expensive OM-4T, but it is not a competitive SLR system. There are lots of used Olympus bodies around, but the lens situation is not as good as with Pentax. All the Pentax K-mount lenses starting from 1975 were multi-coated, but only about half the Olympus used lenses are multi-coated. The difference is dramatic. The older Olympus lenses, while generally very sharp, are much more prone to flare when looking toward bright lights.

Pentax, in developing a line of autofocus bodies that can use the classic lenses of the past, has maintained a viable system in which the user can happily combine in his bag an MX made in 1977 and a *ist D made in 2004. (This is not necessarily great for marketing. Canon and Nikon, having completely or partially abandoned their previous lenses, are much bigger sellers than Pentax.) Film based SLRs are on the way out, and digital SLR prices will soon get low enough to appeal to a wide audience. Pentax, while well behind Canon and Nikon in terms of model range, appears to have made a credible entry into this field.

Update, December 2004: Pentax has just released its second digital SLR, the *ist DS. It is recognizably a Pentax, being both the lightest and most compact DSLR on the market (although still a little heavy by recent Pentax film SLR standards). It also has one of the largest and brightest viewfinders available, with a good focussing screen that makes it possible to focus manually. Shooting in aperture priority is more complicated than in the past, as there is no longer a mechanical linkage between the camera's body and the aperture ring on the lens (and the newer Pentax DA lenses no longer have an aperture ring.)

Nevertheless, Pentax should be given credit for maintaining a greater degree of lens compatibility than any other manufacturer. Any K-mount lens made since 1975 can be used to give aperture priority auto-exposure with an extra push of a button.

Why is this important? For some kinds of photography (still lifes, scenics, architecture), manual focussing is still ideal, and if you are going to focus manually, it is preferable to have a lens that its designed for it. Nothing beats the smooth precision of the focussing ring on a Pentax M or A lens. Autofocus lenses are made with a much looser mechanism, in order to allow the motors to turn them easily. For this reason, the lens elements are often less well aligned, and optical quality is lower as a result. You can put some older Nikon lenses on a Nikon DSLR, but the exposure meter won't function. This backwards compatibility is an important feature of the Pentax DSLRs.

Update, September 2006: Pentax was a bit too slow on the draw in coming out with a DSLR for me, so I switched to Canon, although seeing the new K10D I'm feeling a bit remorseful about having switched. However, as an afficionado of nice old metal-bodied manual lenses, I was pleased to discover that adapters are available to use them on Canon digital SLRs. To see how classic manual focus lenses such as Pentax (Takumar) M42 can be used on Canon DSLRs such as the Digital Rebel XT (EOS 350D), click here.

Do you actually need a digital SLR? To read my views about the pros and cons of digital SLR cameras versus prosumer digital cameras click here.

Some key data

	Vibration level, volts	Body weight, grams	Viewfinder magnification with 50mm lens	Other useful features
Pentax MX	0.24	495	0.97	works without batteries, shutter speed dial, DOF, interchangeable focussing screens, quasi-MLU
Pentax ME	0.22	460	0.95	works without batteries
Pentax ME Super	0.38	445	0.95	works without batteries
Pentax LX	0.58	580	0.9	works without batteries, shutter speed dial, DOF, MLU, interchangeable focussing screens
Pentax Program Plus	0.45	482	n.a.	DOF
Pentax Super Program	0.50	494	0.83	DOF
Pentax P3n	n.a.	500	0.82	AE lock, DOF, shutter speed dial
Pentax MZ-5n	n.a.	410	0.80	AE lock, DOF, shutter speed dial, spot metering
Pentax MZ-M	n.a.	305	0.77	AE lock, DOF, shutter speed dial
Sigma SA-1 or Ricoh XR 7	0.38	490	0.88	AE lock, DOF, shutter speed dial
Olympus OM-1	0.21	525	0.92	works without batteries, shutter speed dial, DOF, interchangeable focussing screens
Olympus OM-2S	0.22	540	0.86	works without batteries, shutter speed dial, DOF, spot metering, mirror lock up with self timer, interchangeable focussing screens
Olympus OM-10	0.24	430	0.92	shutter speed dial (optional), DOF

Data on vibration level are from Popular Photography test reports that were published on these cameras when they came out. Data on viewfinder magnification are from Modern Photography, Shipman, and Pentax brochures.

Great news: Now you can download free, in PDF format, the original owner manuals for many Pentax camera from www.orphancameras.com.

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Copyright (c) 2003 by Peter Spiro.

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