[séamuis]

According to the chart from the Asahi Optical Historical Society, the SPII and SP500 were both introduced in 1971, while the SP1000 came along in 1973.

i look to the AOHC quite often, but the research that Gerjan Van Oosten has done, I believe is far more in depth, and im fairly certain that he is correct in his remarks that the SP1000 was introduced in 1974 not 1973.

you will of course have to excuse my shotty ipod photo with window light, as scanning a page takes time, but here is the ‘specs’ from "The Ultimate Asahi Pentax Screwmount Guide"

[ChrisPlatt]

100,000 - 250,000 copies sold? That must have been one helluva "marketing gimmick"!

If the SP1000 was a "step backward" technologically from the Spotmatic-F has no bearing on which was the final model designed.
Pentax wisely saw an opportunity to sell a popularly-priced model using tried-and-true technology,
one that many customers were accustomed to and preferred, utilizing an existing stock of parts and existing tooling.

Obviously Pentax sold many SP1000's, and the experience was clearly a model for the even more successful K1000.

Chris

[séamuis]

100,000 - 250,000 copies sold? That must have been one helluva "marketing gimmick"!

If the SP1000 was a "step backward" technologically from the Spotmatic-F has no bearing on which was the final model designed.
Pentax wisely saw an opportunity to sell a popularly-priced model using tried-and-true technology,
one that many customers were accustomed to and preferred, utilizing an existing stock of parts and existing tooling.

Obviously Pentax sold many SP1000's, and the experience was clearly a model for the even more successful K1000.

Chris

I think this may well be the case. of course the numbers my look large, but when compared to the numbers of overall parts manufactured fr spotmatics, its nothing. and the SP1000 was sold in all markets except japan, but the SPII was introduced there along side the SP1000 everywhere else. if nothing more, the numbers for the SP1000 show just how popular the spotmatics had been, and at the time still were. you offer a budget model, built upon the same great platform as an existing well known model, and you will sell the budget ones like hotcakes. that is still in practice today, and it works very well. and as noted with the K1000, it worked like a charm. Asahi knew what they were doing, thats for sure.

[noblepa]

100,000 - 250,000 copies sold? That must have been one helluva "marketing gimmick"!

If the SP1000 was a "step backward" technologically from the Spotmatic-F has no bearing on which was the final model designed.
Pentax wisely saw an opportunity to sell a popularly-priced model using tried-and-true technology,
one that many customers were accustomed to and preferred, utilizing an existing stock of parts and existing tooling.

Obviously Pentax sold many SP1000's, and the experience was clearly a model for the even more successful K1000.

Chris

It was a helluva gimmick. It worked!

Seriously, "marketing gimmick" may have been the wrong phrase. I didn't mean it to be a perjorative. Its just that the SP500/1000 were introduced AFTER the SPII and SPF, both of which had builtin hotshoes. The SPF had open-aperture metering. Stop-down metering was one of the knocks that fans of other brands always levelled at Pentax. Their answer was the ES, ES-II and SPF. That the SP500/1000 sold as well as they did, puts the lie to that complaint. Heck, I still do stop-down metering on my K10D, when I use the Super-Takumar 50/1.4. The SP500/1000 were slightly modified original Spotmatics, hardly new cameras.

But, I do suspect that the idea for the SP500/1000 came from the marketing department, not engineering.

They did serve their purpose well, which was to provide a lower cost, entry level camera. I'm sure that the devlopement costs for the SP500/1000 were minimal. It was mostly a matter of deciding what to leave off of the camera. But, they were perfectly good cameras. After all, they were really just Spotmatics, which is one of the all-time great cameras, IMHO.

And, 100,000 cameras for Pentax during that period wasn't all that many. Remember, during the Spotmatic era, Pentax outsold Nikon and Canon, combined, at least in number of cameras sold.

I've seen some claims that the Auto 110, which was only in production for about three years, sold more than two million cameras. And I don't think you could consider it a real success, since it was cancelled without a replacement (I'm including the Auto 110 Super in those numbers).

Given that the K1000 was really just an updated Spotmatic (as I said before, nothing wrong with that), the Spotmatic and its progeny had a pretty good run. The Spotmatic was first shown in 1960; first sold in 1964 and didn't go out of production until 1997, when the last K1000 was made.

[ChrisPlatt]

I have owned and used the Spotmatic F and SP1000. Both are wonderful cameras.

I really dig the simplicity of the SP1000. I never use self-timers or hot shoes.
Stopped-down metering isn't so bad as I always use DOF preview anyway...

Chris

[noblepa]

I have owned and used the Spotmatic F and SP1000. Both are wonderful cameras.

I really dig the simplicity of the SP1000. I never use self-timers or hot shoes.
Stopped-down metering isn't so bad as I always use DOF preview anyway...

Chris

I agree about the simplicity. I have owned a Spotmatic, since I bought it new, in 1967. In all that time, I think I've used the self-timer perhaps three times. I've only used the one on my K10D a couple of times. Since the Spotmatic doesn't have a hotshoe, and I virtually never use the self-timer, it might as well be an SP1000.

I still use the 50mm, f/1.4 Super Takumar lens on my K10D, so I still use stop-down metering. The flow is the same as on the Spotmatic; focus, recompose if necessary, stop-down, shoot. The nice thing about Super Tak's on the K10D is that I can use aperture priority mode.

[séamuis]

I agree about the simplicity. I have owned a Spotmatic, since I bought it new, in 1967. In all that time, I think I've used the self-timer perhaps three times.

you have to admit that this is a pretty good excuse to use your spotmatics self timer.

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzKut15_0uQ&feature=related[/YT]

[gofour3]

you have to admit that this is a pretty good excuse to use your spotmatics self timer.

Great ads thanks for posting!

Phil.

[tuco]

Don't forget the Pentax 6x7 also had Honeywell on them when talking the last Pentax camera with Honeywell on it.

[séamuis]

Don't forget the Pentax 6x7 also had Honeywell on them when talking the last Pentax camera with Honeywell on it.

according to the Asahi Optical Historical club, the first version of the 6x7 was discontinued in 1976. the second version (with MLU) was released the same year, in 1976. so its safe to assume that the second version would have been labeled ‘Asahi’ in the US as this was one year after the release of the K series and one year before the discontinuation of the SP1000. this would mean that the Spotmatic SP1000 is still the last of the honeywell’s. but then some of their dates directly conflict with the information given in ‘The Ultimate Asahi Pentax Screwmount Guide’. especially since they list the SP1000 as ending production in ’76, so its hard to say. if anyone else has any information on discontinuation and release dates, it would be appreciated.