Hi, Ronald, Well, the lens changing thing is a matter of practise, maybe!
The Spotmatics are very sturdy cameras, as evidenced by the number of people on this list who still use them! The meters tend to go on them (I doubt that they were designed to last 30 or 40 years), but they can be replaced from parts cameras, or with slight modification, with K1000 meters, by a competent repair shop (one of my Spots has a K1000 meter in it, and it works just fine). I still use my Spotmatics on a regular basis, and other than the odd CLA and replacement of seals, I don't see any reason why they won't go on for another 30 or 40 years (assuming parts can be gotten, but I'm lucky in that my repair shop is pretty good at scrounging used parts). The K1000 is basically a Spotmatic F, without self-timer and with a bayonet mount, so I'd say yes, Spotmatics are as "eternal" as the early k-mounts. cheers, frank Ronald Arvidsson wrote: > Hi Frank, > > Maybe I made a mistake. Good to hear that your old gear is adequate. > It is true that one seldom need the one or two extra seconds. For me > it would only arise in photographing wildlife or birds when my two > bodies I would bring don't have the lens I want. Then, due to the very > fast changing distances angle and thus motif it might might be needed > otherwise not. Granted that there is a significant time difference of > a second or so in the change of lenses when comparing screwmount to K > mount. One can actually loose a lot of time by not being properly > prepared - thus mount doesnt matter. > > I have a question about the cameras though, I used a lot old Konica > gear but found that the cameras didn't last as well as the lenses, are > Pentax screwmount bodies as eternal as the somewhat younger first > generation K mount cameras? > > Cheers, > > Ronald > -- "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
