Pentax MX

Pentax announced the MX-1 at the recent CES show, but this is my Pentax MX, a film camera from the 1970's or 1980's. Actually I have 2 bodies from that period, one I bought then, and a used body I bought a few years later (and 2 ME Super bodies with similar history!). When I bought the first MX, I thought I would be buying an Olympus OM-1, but after trying both, and a Canon, the MX was an easy choice - 'just hold a Pentax' was the advertising slogan at the time, and it certainly worked for me. The MX was perhaps the most lovely camera I have ever owned (including the Leica M6), and the lenses were superb as well. When I went to my first job in 1967, I owned a Pentax S1a, but the cameras at work included a Nikon F; the Nikon was so agriculteral compared with my Pentax (and the Exa 1a with f2.9 Meritar lens was so crude, and lens not much better than the bottom of a milk bottle). After replacing batteries, the ME Supers are fine, but both MX's suffer from a poor mechanical aperture connection from the lens to the camera bodies. I wonder if I can get that fixed? IN the meantime, I have been using the Olympus OM10 a few ties. I'd thought I would take the film to Jessops when I finished it, but sadly they Have just goner into administration. I don't like buying cameras without holding them and getting to try the controls, and with the demise of Jessops that is becoming almost impossible here in the UK.

My usual description of the MX and ME Super was that they were camera jewels, and I don't feel any different about them now, even though my Olympus E-M5 is now my camera of choice.