“been seeing a number of posts out there from film photographers which sing the praises of the K1000”
The mad fools
ah actually because a basic camera will teach you best how to get good pics. Deprived of fancy gadgets you have to be creative and many photogs probably cut their teeth on the K1000.
(1) Is the basic K-mount (as found on the K1000) an open standard? I see many companies produced lenses for the mount - did they have to license them from Pentax?
I m pretty sure Pentax offered it as an open standard but it wasnt picked up by the other big three manufacturers ( Canon, Nikon and Minolta ......Olympus were not in play with SLRs at the time. Canon were asleep at the wheel, Nikon wpuld have taken a NIH view and Minolta would have laughed as they were already ahead of the game at that time )
(2) Watching a few videos on the K1000 and it's guts, it seems complex (but nothing like a modern camera). With rapid prototyping, laser cutting, and modern manufacturing, it seems like most of the gears, etc. could be produced fairly rapidly. Does anyone have experience with these things? Would modern manufacturing lower costs without cutting quality?
Yes I do have experience and manufacturing the precision parts at a price that would make the whole idea feasible would require huge volume. I dont think the volume would be there and some parts may be simple impossible to manufacture again irrespective. The basic tooling may no longer exist and the K1000 may look simple, try assembling one from scratch and its hard to see. How anyone ever made any money making these things and that was with volume sales.
(3) In your opinion, is the K1000 valued because of: (1) classic status; (2) build; (3) Pentax name; (4) some combination of these; or (5) something else?
Hipster chic....and possibly because most people buying for reasons other than nostalgia of their youth were not around back then so are unaware its not really that great. The KX is better as a fully mechanical type camera. Better metering and full info viewfinder. Plenty of other non Pentax cameras can offer similar petformance and have more features.
(4) If another company produced a solid body modeled closely on the K1000, with a K-mount, would you consider buying it, and what would you consider paying for it?
I might consider a redux fully mechanical camera but not the K1000. I would prefer something slicker but the price would have to be low otherwise its just cheaper to buy a used camera and have it refurbed. My most expensive camera at the moment is a Nikon F. Cost to buy £300 including a nice f1.4 lens. Around £100 to have lens and body serviced and its a beauty and lovely to work with. So would I pay more than that for a new K1000 ? Nada.
So for me it would have to roll in at around no more than £500 or else I may as well buy a Nikon FM3A.