| Latest Review Posted | Pentax Spotmatic
I bought mine used from a photographer friend who took pity after my ~25-year old Rollei SL35 (which I continued using for ~20-years after dunking it in salt water, without so much as a CLA) gave up the ghost. It had a dead meter too.
Some people may be surprised that I put 'dead meter' as a positive aspect. It wasn't until I was forced to get a hand-held meter (a cheapo Sekonic autoleader) that I realized how much I hate manual TTL metering. It's a stupid pain in the ass that is far from bulletproof, and a significant distraction from picture-taking. Hand-held metering is also far from bulletproof, but it gets the job done and isn't a PITA (IMO).
Anyhoo, back to the spotmatic. Someone once said that a camera body is just a box you stick lenses on. This is absolutely true of the spotmatic and its ilk. This here is the main positive aspect: there's a crazy ton of easily obtainable screw mount lenses in the wild that are generally built to last (like most all photo gear, back in the day). No plastic here, nosiree. The lenses range as you might expect from optical rubbish to optical gold, in a surprisingly low price spread.
I own a couple of modern, all-auto (focus, exposure, film advance & rewind) film bodies, with kit zooms, and they are not easier to use than the spotmatic. They generally yielded roughly the same quality negatives, albeit with consistently 'perfect' exposures (how boring is that?). A door latch spring on my plastic Canon Rebel Ti broke after only a ... |
