Originally posted by MadMathMind So, I ask, what made Nikon cameras better than Pentax ones in the 1970s?
See below...
Originally posted by tibbitts I had a Pentax, not a Nikon, and it depends on when in the '70s you had in mind.
A lot happened during the decade with the various brands leapfrogging over each other trying to keep up in terms of features while also attempting to address the need to produce a compact product ala Olympus.
Nikon produced consistently excellent product during the 70s (if you ignore the EM). The same is true with Pentax except that Pentax began a decided consumer-grade slant toward the end of the decade. Does that make Nikon better? It is hard to say since both lines seem to have weathered the ravages of time fairly well with good representation on the used market today.
It would also be good to remember that it was not just a two horse race. The 70s started with many brands having significant market share and it ended the same way. The major changes were the ascendancy of Canon and the entry of Olympus along with a decline for Konica. Canon's release of the AE-1 introduced the concept of the solid and capable advanced consumer-grade SLR. Pentax, Minolta, and the rest of the industry followed that lead with the plethora of affordable, high-quality, automated-exposure SLR that characterized the early to mid-1980s.
It was not a simple picture.
All that being said, I can make a definite statement of opinion regarding my picks of desirable cameras for the decade (no particular order):
- Any of Nikon flagship product
- Olympus OM line
- Pentax K-series
- Pentax MX
- Nikon FM
- Nikon FE
- Minolta XD series
Now that is done,
why the silly questions regarding photo history? There are relatively few members of this site who were alive and doing photography during the 1970s and even fewer that were doing so as a pro. The classic cameras of the period are pretty well-defined and quite apparent with a bit of Google work. Relative market share is a little hard to determine, but then again, the memories of us "old-timers" are not exactly reliable either.
Steve
(...really would like a well-preserved FM or FM-2, despite currently owning a fairly pristine KX...
)
---------- Post added 03-09-14 at 02:33 PM ----------
Originally posted by tibbitts pentax retained slower horizontal cloth shutters once many other cameras had moved on to generally faster vertical metal shutters.
It was not quite so simple. Most metal shutters before 1980 max'ed out at 1/1000s, the same as horizontal cloth shutters of the time. The big advantage was higher flash sync (1/125s) and durability. The big disadvantage was noise and vibration. By the late-1970s, lighter and quieter all-electronic vertical metal shutters became available and were incorporated into most of the Pentax M-series bodies. By 1980, the only Pentax models having cloth shutters were the K1000 and MX.
Steve