Veteran Member Registered: February, 2008 Location: Waterloo, Ontario Posts: 4,461 1 user found this helpful | Review Date: March 18, 2011 | Not Recommended | Price: $40.00
| Rating: 3 |
Pros: | Looks very cool | Cons: | Obsolete - no longer possible to add correct year to date and Pentax no longer services this item. | | Here's a blast from the analog past - the Dial Data MX. I got this unit in the mid 1980s to add year, month, day and f stop information on my film images. Sadly, it has been pretty much useless since 1993. This was the date when the year dial maxed out. Pentax no longer updates this analog gear and potential buyers should be aware of this before they purchase one used. The month, f stop and day still work but the year is important too. It is not entirely useless but pretty close to being so. Another minor inconvenience occurs with the Dial Data MX when its time to take film out of the camera. The cord from the data back runs over the top of the camera to connect to the FP-sync terminal. You have to disconnect the unit to open the back of the camera. Not a big deal but one which might surprise you at first.
For those willing to overlook the problem of not being able to record the year on your image the manual suggests a number of potential uses. Used in combination these dials can be used to record aperture setting, shutter speed, focal length of the lens in use (for 35mm lenses and shorter) and magnification ratios. Letters A to O may also be used to encode information. The manual suggests with a “little imagination” and employing “various codes” virtually “unlimited applications” can be found for the dial data units” including: scientific work such as indexing lab specimens, cataloging products in industry, recording the progress of work on construction sites etc. I suppose it might be possible to overcome the date issue with some sort of improvised code but it would be a pain in the neck.
The Dial Data MX takes three silver oxide batteries and sucks them dry fairly quickly. These little batteries are getting expensive and who knows how much longer they will be available? In any case the Dial Data certainly uses far more power than the MX meter which is very frugal in this power consumption area.
On the upside the Dial Data still looks really cool attached to the MX and it is quite simple to install. If you have damaged your original MX back it could serve as a replacement in a pinch. It is a pretty rare item and I recommend it only to those die hard Pentax collectors who must have everything Pentax ever made. You know who you are.
Check the link below: http://www.pentaximaging.com/files/manual/Dial_Data_LX_ME_MX.pdf
for further information on the various Pentax analog data backs.
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