Pros | Light and Small, Accurate, Easy to Use, Flash Compatability |
Cons | Batteries Required |
Rating | 9 |
Price | $100 with a/28mm f/2.8 |
Years Owned | 2 years |
I can recommend this camera: Yes
Value, Features, Performance & Size
This is a cheaply available, lightweight, compact manual focus SLR that is simple to use.
Camera Review
Of all my camera bodies, the one that brings me the most pure joy to use is my Super Program. With bodies ranging from an Asahi Pentax SV to a K10D at the ready, this says a lot.
The Super Program is built on the same frame as two other venerable cameras from Pentax: The very compact ME/ME Super, and the ultra-compact and legendary MX. The Super Program gives you a little more bang than those options. This was the first of the A-series SLR bodies, which allowed the camera body to control aperture automatically. A-series lenses were introduced with this model.
Pros: Feature-rich
This camera comes with all the bells and whistles. Except of course for autofocus, you get just about everything you'd need: Everything from Program AE to fully manual control, exposure information in the viewfinder, exposure compensation, self-timer and aperture preview. Everything you look for in a professional SLR, right there.
Pros: Light and Small
Despite the full list of features, the SUper Program is only a tiny bit bigger and a few grams heavier than the ME Super and MX...by many accounts, 2 of the smallest film SLRs in the world. The Super Program has a slightly bulkier prism housing thanks to the light collector for the LCD displays, and has a grip on the right-hand side, but other than that is every bit as tiny as its older brothers.
Pros: TTL Flash
The Super Program has a very advanced (for its time) TTL Flash system, letting you simply mount the flash, set the shutter speed at flash-sync and forget. You can also leave the shutter in Auto and it will know never to pick above sync. With an AF-360 FGZ flash, the Super Program's flash photography abilities are excellent.
Pros: Easy to Use
The Super Program shoots in four exposure modes: Program AE, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual. The way it does this is quite simple and, frankly, brilliant: If you set the aperture ring and the shutter mode dial both to Auto, you're in program. Move either one into manual, and you get shutter or aperture priority, depending on which you move. If you move them both into manual, you are in fully manual mode, metered, with a display of how many stops off you are in the viewfinder. I wish modern SLRS did this! The shutter speed LCD on the camera's right shoulder is also helpful when shooting from the hip, making street shots very easy.
Pros: Lens Compatibility
The Super Program can handle any Pentax or third-party lens you throw at it. K, M, A, FA FA-J, D-FA, and even DA lenses all work fine, though if you don't have an aperture ring you lose aperture priority, and there may be some cropping/vignetting/dark corners with certain lenses. I've used digital lenses on my Super Program many times, and the results have been very good. The Sigma 10-20mm at about 15mm is an especially fun choice.
Cons: Batteries Required
The Super Program has one Achilles Heel: It requires battery power in order to shoot at all. The fully-electronic shutter requires juice even to actuate, so if you run out of batteries you're totally dead in the water. On the bright side, the electronic nature of the shutter release makes Self-timer a solid-state function, and makes the shutter release very fluid and smooth.
Cons: DoF Preview in Av mode only
If you want depth of field preview to work on this camera, you have to use the aperture ring to select the aperture. I've wanted to see the depth of field of several shots in Program AE or on Digital lenses, and with the aperture ring set to A or a ringless lens, hitting the mechanical DoF preview lever gives you the minimum aperture available. A bit of a bummer, but not a show-stopper.
Conclusion
I love, love, LOVE this camera. It isn't perfect, but it's close. The smallness, combined with the ease of use make it a Go-to film body for me. Not only would I reccomend buying one, but I bought my dad one, and I would buy a digital version if one were ever made.
I'd rate this camera, overall, 9/10.