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This blog post is about the K1000 which was given to me by my Dad. In terms of the impact it had on my photography - well it kicked off my interest in it. Up till that point I took holiday snaps, (coincidentally with a Pentax Optio) and that was it. Every thing that is said about the K1000 being the student's camera it true - and I think I will always be looking for the simple combination of bright viewfinder, mechanical feel, and intuitive metering.
This forum is notorious for the dreaded runaway full frame thread, and whilst I find the endless arguments about crop-factor, resolution and ISO pretty tedious now, I do share a frustration that nothing Pentax makes now equals the immediacy of looking through that massive bright viewfinder. I started getting into photography halfway through what has turned into six years of study to be a counsellor. The process of reflection, therapy and self-analysis is pretty tiring. It becomes a habit to question everything, to never relax and be in the moment. I started to discover what Cartier-Bresson really meant by the decisive moment. Looking through a viewfinder simultaneously takes you out of the kaleidoscope in your head, and also removes you from the here and now for an instant. You become an observer of the other, rather than yourself.
kaleidascope by jeztastic
I also learned so much from the simplicity of the controls. Aperture, shutter speed and film speed. When you change one you see the needle move, you hear and feel the shutter take longer, you see the hole get larger and smaller when you open the back of the camera. You feel the clunk after you press the trigger, and you know what it's going to look like more or less without looking at a screen. Because of course, it has to look that way, because the physics is so simple. You know the effect of working at 100 ISO because you run out of shutter speed when you are already at f1.7 on your 50mm, and you know that even if you have it in focus, there's no way you held it that still... For me, using a DSLR after getting used to the K1000 was a massive disappointment. I have had to find other ways of enjoying my K10D and K5, but none of them are ever quite as wired in as the K1000 felt.
Akimbo by Jeztastic
What is really important to me though, is that my Dad gave me the camera. I remember him going off to work with it in the 80s, taking slides of historic buildings to list them for the local government. We used to tease him about his fascination with old buildings, but I also remember my interest as he described the process of taking pictures, the long shutter speeds inside, the advantages and disadvantages of using a wide-angle lens. My father is a quiet, spiritual man, who always took a frustratingly long time to make a decision about anything. However, I learned things from him which make me who I am today - the importance of patience and watchfulness, of compassion and empathy. I was able to find a way to be a man which encompasses these things and makes me a good counsellor. The camera symbolises some of these things, but there are also other rather more traditionally male ones - using tools, being in control of a situation, producing images which people will hopefully admire.
Spiderfence by jeztastic
The K1000 is now with my sister - I hope she will get something out of it, perhaps as much as I did. Psychotherapists talk about 'internalising' a good object - when you spend enough time with someone - friend, parent, therapist - you learn a different way of doing something, you make the good parts your own. That seems to have happened with the K1000. It's a strange concept, but of course when you love something, you can let it go...
Cat to Cat by jeztastic
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Had a K1000 for a while. Started with a borrowed Spotmatic and a light meter I hung around my neck. The Spotmatic took wonderful photos with that 55mm lens. Later I bought my own K1000... it was slightly more useful, having a built in meter, but I still miss that spotmatic. The K1000 was nice for a while, but the viewfinder, albeit bright, had no split prism, and thus it was very hard to nail focus -- especially on slower telephoto lenses. The light meter also was rather annoying. When the battery died (which happened every few days it seems), it would read correctly exposed. When it was getting near death, the meter would still move, but in not as big of an arc. So it looked to be one stop over or under, but was actually 3 or 4 stops. So I actually ended up buying a light meter and ignoring the in-camera meter entirely. Other than that, it was a solid camera. Could pound nails with it. I dropped it a few times (once from an overhead bin in an airplane) and it just dented the floor. Great camera... but I think my heart will always yearn for the Spotmatic and that 55mm lens.
Article brings back memories. Many years ago at the age of 14 my uncle decided I should get a 'real' camera and took me to several pawn shops where I finally found a Universal 35 mm w/ built-in light meter (overlapping squares of translucent plastic). I sold it a year later for twice what I paid and upgraded to a K1000. Learned a lot from the Universal and K1000. The K1000 was stolen when in college so I got an ME Super. I strayed briefly from Pentax in 2001 with various digital P&S but returned when the ist came out and am now looking forward to getting the KIIS, moire or not!
This is one great empathetic article. I share similar precoius experiences with cameras from my dad (Pentax ME Super) and grandfahther (Rollei 35s). The reduced speed of shooting on film and examinating the results is just another world compared to nowadays digital photography. I can't tell which is better, but film definitively still attracts me a lot. Great work!
Would love to see a picture of the punked K1000 chrismarais.
Heh, my dad bought me a k1000 at the end of the 1970's in Yorkshire, England. He had a Spotmatic and was a fan of Pentax already. It came with a 50mm M lens and I bought a 135mm M lens with my christmas or birthday money (or both, can't quite remember). I loved it and used it for years and years. I painted it red with Humbrol enamel paint, then painted leopard spots all over so it looked a bit punk. I tried to replace it with newer cameras and some very dodgy lenses but always went back until I bought the istD (at a ludicrous launch price), which I used until last year. I now have a K5 and some 10 prime and zoom lenses, and my K1000 and istD are in a cabinet. I am also now a successful cinematographer shooting movies and commercials all over the world, thanks to my K1000 making me interested in photography when I was 15.
My k1000 taught me the basics. My k10D gave me instant feedback on those basics. Digital has enabled me to learn much faster and to "fool around" more because I don't have to wait for photos to be developed and then realize I burned maybe a whole roll of film. My faithful 1000s (I bought a second body years ago so I didn't have to be swapping lenses) have gone through dust storms, tumbling off horses and down trails and still work fine. And the 1000 just has something about it -- the feel as you advance the film to the next exposure, the solid sound of the shutter, just the heft of it.
A very accurate descriptive on the simplicity and directness of the K1000. My first camera, also given to me (new) by my father in 1982, was this K1000 which I still have and had used until 2005. A suggestion: I put the O-ME53 on the viewfinder of my K5 and, WOW, what a nice difference for me. The viewfinder comes across as bright and large, if not more so, than that of the k1000's. Although I do get slight vignetting, I still get 100% coverage. I agree that half of the "zen" that goes with photography is looking through the viewfinder. I still can't get used to looking at an LCD for composition.
Thanks for the comments all!
Jezastic,
I have the same story with a different camera from my father, a Kodak Retina IIa from the 1950s. It was totally manual and I had to learn it all. It also had an excellent Schnider f2 50mm lens.
I still have it from my father who is still alive. He never got another camera.
WOW!
I still have my K1000. I purchased it new in 1978 for a photography class I was taking in high school. It was a fairly new model at the time, having been introduced in 1976 I believe. It was a requirement of the class to have a completely manual 35mm camera so that we would "become photographers and not camera operators".
The amazing thing is I just removed it from the closet last night and was admiring it, appreciating its simplicity and recalling the memories I had captured with it. I left it sitting on my desk last night with the 50mm kit lens it came with (I still have other lenses for it). I awoke this morning, looked at it and then checked the forum and saw your blog post. How unreal. Great write-up!
I now use a Pentax K-7, but still photograph predominately in manual mode and manual focus. I guess its a K1000 thing.
Thanks for the write-up and a great start for my day.
Fantastic jeztastic!
It couldn't get any better than this:
"I started to discover what Cartier-Bresson really meant by the decisive moment. Looking through a viewfinder simultaneously takes you out of the kaleidoscope in your head, and also removes you from the here and now for an instant. You become an observer of the other, rather than yourself."
Loved your introspective meanderings. Sometimes as a photographer the view finder allows me to slip even further away, almost like becoming other as I lose myself in the process.
Thanks for this wonderful write-up!