by John O'Keefe-Odom
AgXphoto.info
Submerged for 20 minutes in a bucket of warm water laced with a cavalier dose of sodium carbonate. That’s oxy-bleach for all you non-nerds out there. Inside that bucket of water and oxidizer, was a K1000.
When I pulled it out, I got it working again.
That particular K1000 came to me for a project; and, I probably shouldn’t tell anybody what I did to it; but, that unit was in rough shape. A previous user had left it exposed to the elements. My guess is that it had been laying in the trunk of a car for some time; maybe rained on and snowed on for years, until someone happened to find it. I don’t know what its actual history was. The imagination reels; but, its one tough camera that needed a bath.
Rust, corrosion, fungus, anodizing and a film of dirt, were all over the camera. I’m usually pretty careful about how I clean them off; but this was an especially bad case, calling for the smart bomb of cleanups.
Afterwards, it received a “liberal” lubrication.
I got it working again. The bath helped. Bolts got unstuck; corrosion rinsed away. Alternate sprayings of carburetor cleaner and weapons oil began to unstick metal parts. The main mechanical lockup on the camera was a synch jam that I cleared after tinkering. At first the usual methods didn’t work; a mirror and film advance synch on a K1000 is a simple matter. It helps if the parts move. Eventually, they did.
Most cameras would have died out before they hit the bath.
I’ve dished out my share of punishment to camera bodies, but the K1000 may very well be the Leica III of Japan. I’ve often compared Pentax to Leica; and, while I don’t know a thing about their internal business workings that have been in the news lately; I do know that for decades they have made some very good, sturdy, respectable cameras.
Perhaps some of us lose respect when we are told to consider the K1000 as a student model. Maybe few people realize that someone just taught that student on the ’57 Chevy of cameras. Often imitated, and built like a tank, the K1000 SLR could easily be the first and last camera body anyone would ever want to own.
Let’s have a look at some of its features. We’ll gloss over “toughness” for now.
The K1000 is what I call a “mechanical” camera; that is, over 90% of its functions are mechanical, and of the 10% that remain, none are required to make an exposure. It has a light meter that’s TtL, but that meter is not linked into making an exposure decision by the machine.
The speed dial on the top plate can tell new users a great deal about what the camera does. On the K1000, we see a simple mechanical dial with a top face that describes shutter speeds from 1/1000th to 1 full second, plus Bulb. Lift the rim of that dial, and we’re able to change film speeds for metering from ASA 20 to 3200. I have successfully used the camera with film speeds both above (6400+) and below (ASA 12) the markings on the speed dial. Doing so requires a little bit of thinking on the part of the operator; but it’s often just an easy adding or subtracting of a stop on the aperture ring dial or clicks on the speed dial to get you where you need to be.
Flash Use
The camera X-synchs at 1/60 and below. A lot of newer photographers are looking for higher synch speeds. I don’t know why because it’s the blast of the flash more than the action of the camera shutter that stops the action. Synch speed to flash duration relationships have more influence on determining the amount of ambient light let in to contribute to the exposure of the film; 1/60 is more than enough to shut out ambient light in almost all situations I can think of. For example, I’ve been able to freeze beads of water in motion with an x-synch of 1/60 with no problem.
What’s good about the camera is that it synchs slower than 1/60. When I evaluate synch speed, I look not only at its highest “shut-out” synch speed, but also its lower, slower values. How well a camera handles synchs at speeds like 1/8 and slower can tell us about how easily we can paint with light in these fractions of a second. I find, that with most films, if we are going to make flash-plus-ambient exposures, we’ll want a synch of closer to half a second. This would be for a moderate film (ASA 32 to 400) in a normally lit household interior. The K1000 does great in this area, in my opinion.
I synch most of the flashes of my strobes through a PC cord built into the body of the camera. Yes, I know, everyone wants radio triggers. PC cords suit my needs. Troubleshooting a misfire with a simple cable system is easy; I find they are durable in the field (I sometimes go where there is mud); they’ve been around for decades; and, they don’t need batteries beyond what’s powering the flash already (a great advantage for those of us who go hours down the trail into places where there is no “corner store”).
The location of the PC cord jack on the camera body has been convenient for me; and, superior to the lack of PC synch I see on many other contemporary cameras. The synch jack is on the lower portion of the left front side (all our notions are from the camera operator’s point of view) face plate. This allows me to plug in the cord, drape the cord over the top of the lens barrel, and let the cord hang free. That practice helps to take up the slack on the cord; it prevents any wobbling or jarring of the PC cord at the jack; so, I can move around without worrying about the cord coming undone, or the connection being interrupted.
The placement of the cord jack on the camera chassis makes for a “just right” fit with the cord ends; there’s no binding or bending, but just the right amount of friction to hold the whole thing in place. Combine this with the way ridges are placed on lens barrel assemblies, and the edges of the Pentax 645 Adapter K, and the cord placement remains trouble-free.
Good design on the PC cord jack connections helps me to shoot without being distracted over the connections. Everything is right there, and works great.
Film Chamber
Inside the film chamber of K1000, we see a standard layout. The film end does require trimming to half-film width in order to mate up with the slit in the take up spool. The camera has a rubberized fabric focal plane shutter; I would prefer metal curtains for durability; but even the oldest of the Pentax 35mm cameras still have shutters in good condition.
Foam Design & Placement
Foam-wise, the camera is a case of easy maintenance. Foam, yes, foam, lining the light-tight grooves around the film door is a source of wear and tear for used cameras. On the K1000, the foam is barely noticeable. On other systems, elaborate designs involving adhesive-backed foam of varying thicknesses are required. The Pentax K1000’s film door takes a standard and common 2mm foam with no adhesive. There is a thin felt strip that needs adhesive near the hinge plate; also common. There is one strip of mirror buffer foam that is glued to the ceiling of the mirror bay; this prevents the mirror from crashing against the top parts of the camera; the use of this one strip is a design that’s used in many cameras. It is the easiest to replace, and does the job well.
There are cameras out there which will have a full ring of foam around the focusing screen; trimming and installing foam to fit in those configurations is less desirable; it’s often harder to get a good fit because there might be a metal projection in the way that has to be allowed for, or something else. Also, installing that kind of foam is more difficult because the focusing screen is sensitive and the mirror of a camera should never be touched; unlike household mirrors, camera mirrors are often coated with their silverings on the top face; and would show tarnish or wear or any evidence of dirt easily.
All of this means that one of the more common maintenance procedures for used cameras, installing new foam, is quick and easy in the K1000. This should mean lower long term maintenance costs for owners of the camera. It’s a good set of choices in an area where other camera companies have dropped the ball and chosen more expensive methods which would only have achieved the same thing: a light-tight fitting, every time.
Lens Mount
Legendary. The company still holds true to its credo of “any Pentax lens ever made” with this camera. That means user can select from SLR lenses going back several decades; an enviable claim that the CanNikons of the world can’t hold to anymore. Lens mounts in Pentax cameras were backwards compatible long before nerds thought to call it backwards compatibility. Add in an M42 adapter, and you can rave support for the Fab Four as they hit American shores while you don your 1960s-era screwmount lenses from a Spotmatic.
The Pentax K mount is a simple bayonet system; all metal, it’s sturdy. Something contemporary manufacturers have tried to gloss over occasionally by building in plastic lens mounts into newer cameras. While plastic mounts may have a lot more strength and flexibility than we might give them credit for, this is one area where users benefit from some old fashioned stone.
The gusset plate, the part that bolts the lens mount to the chassis of the camera itself, is bolted on securely. It could be removed for maintenance if a disaster occurred; if you bolt the K1000 onto a 24” refracting telescope and try to use the 1/4” camera tripod mount, then you might be able to expect disaster. Meanwhile, the sturdy lens mount will hold telephotos that exceed the camera’s size and weight. A pretty good achievement, when you consider the amount of force the lens mount area on a camera gets subjected to through leverage.
I routinely use 645 lenses on the K1000. I have never developed any concerns about lens weight on lenses nine inches in length or below. Clearly built to handle most telephotos with aplomb.
Batteries
We’ve seen cameras felled by a lack of batteries or film sizes that have gone out of style. The Pentax K1000 takes LR44 variant batteries; it’s a common old-fashioned watch battery. Can’t get one? Well, then the light meter won’t measure illumination, but the camera will still work anyway.
Building a camera with a battery that is used everywhere is a good idea. Pentax made that decision with this camera, and it’s still going strong because people can find a battery that will fit, at a common voltage, all over the place. I can pick up a replacement at most drug stores. If you have to special order a battery; well, that’s one more person who is not as likely to use the camera as much and enjoy it.
When the camera is loaded with batteries, it’s always on. You shut it off by putting the lens cap on the camera. Remember the lens cap? It’s not just for dust anymore. They’re supposed to have a few functions, including being used as a substitute shutter; and one of the lens cap’s functions with the K1000 is conserving the battery power.
How long will the battery last if this is required? Months. And, since the particular battery required is cheaper than some rolls of film, picking up a new one a couple of times is not a big deal. Ask a DSLR user how he feels about batteries. He’ll have an opinion. For a Pentax K1000, you just need to get some volts in the battery compartment.
Weak Points
With this tough all-mechanical camera, the most likely weak point in a model you come across will be its cosmetic appearance. Like the horror story camera I started with, above, some K1000s have been put through some rough treatment.
Common blemish areas include: battery cover, rewind knob, leatherette, hinge point rust, and film counter cover missing. If the rewind know breaks off, the film can still be rewound, it’s just less convenient; the rewind assembly is simply a forked axle that also works a spring loaded latch in the film door. That’s it. You can get a replacement knob of most any kind that will fit; if it turns the crank and bolts on there, it qualifies. Film counter cover is a little harder to come up with or substitute, but it doesn’t affect your ability to make a picture. Either the film cranks to the next frame, or it doesn’t.
I mention this because these same areas, in electronic cameras, also are used to house sensitive circuitry in some models. The rewind knob assembly is a good example; it’ll be used to hide custom-built PC boards or rotary switches used to make some adjustment on the camera. With the all-mechanical design, the need for all of that is pretty much eliminated.
Film advance assemblies do have a tendency to wear out in some of these cameras. It’s usually from overuse and a lack of maintenance. Have your camera looked at every so often, and I don’t mean the outside.
Overall, A+
Overall, the K1000 is one of the best cameras ever built. There are other good models out there, too; but the K1000 can be the first and last camera you’ll ever need.
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