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Thursday, February 18, 2016

Sometimes you must wait 23 years ! The Legendary Pentax MX

Well back then in 1991 there was no Internet.

There were only some heave encyclopedias if you were lucky and you have an updated one at your bookshelf.

My father was an owner of two SLR cameras.One was the Canon T50 with two lenses 50mm and 80-200mm something and one Pentax ME with 50/1.7 lens.

I started taking photos at the year 1991.Was serving my country at army and took the Canon camera with me to shoot some photos with my friends.

Didn't know anything about photography.Just load a color film put the Canon camera to program AE and shot the whole film.

Generally as a family we were shooting something like 3-5 films per year I think.

Before finishing army duty for my country finally transferred in my hometown city Thessaloniki for the rest 6 months.I had time to go to some municipality payed photographic courses.There I met one of the best teachers in photography in between to all teachers in the country.

Tasos Schizas was a teacher but also a friend a really inspiring person.

While learning,studying,reading everything about photography it happened to buy my own darkroom lab even before learning how to prepare developer.

So at nights I was developing and printing my films also at night.

While the things were going on I had the need of a good and manual camera.Program cameras were not good for me because I can’t do my stuff having a good exposure at difficult circumstances.

To search for a good camera back them it was a torture.I must talk with many people at photographic stores also with my teacher,read advertisements at photo magazines see my budget and compare all these thing to decide.

Having in mind that I can use the one good lens that I had free at my Pentax camera and also the semi automatic Pentax ME I tried to find the next better camera after Pentax ME and this was the already legendary Pentax MX.

Back at the year 1992-93 the photographic stores in Thessaloniki were totally different.They didn’t have in stock many cameras.Also the most sellers prefer to sell Canon or Nikon instead of Pentax.Sales profit tricks.

Nikon back then I thing had the biggest share of photography market with legendary cameras like F2,FM,F3,FM2.

It was really hard to find a body of Pentax MX or even to see someone shooting with this camera.

Finally I abandoned the idea of buying a Pentax camera and bought a used FM 2 silver with two series E lenses one 28/2.8 and one 135/2.8.

I kept and used this camera for more than 10 years without any problem also with one 120 film TLR camera bought very cheap in an open bargain place.My lovely IKOFLEX 1932 model that managed to shoot more than 250 rolls of 120 B/W film.

At 90’s maybe I was obsessed with the manual cameras that doesn’t need battery to work.I didn’t realized how the things will change at digital era .

After passing some years I became a professional photographer and used many cameras in my life.From film cameras to digital ones.

Last year I decide,after giving up for 13 years and already sold all of my analog equipment years back,to start all over again shooting film again.

Why ? Because I want to slow down.I want to spend my holidays shooting 1-2 films.I want to cary all day everyday an analog film camera with me.Like the old times.

I made a search and finally bought a rangefinder camera MINOLTA CLE with a Leitz Summicron 40/2.0.Great camera and great lens but……

In my age (45) a problem with my eyes started.Im not wearing glasses yet but at night and at low light circumstances I have a problem.I can’t see very well.My CLE camera works perfect but I can’t see very well and this makes my life difficult when it is to focus with a rangefinder camera.

As a miracle searching at the internet found and bought AT LAST a used Pentax MX black.

It came at a low price but needs CLA and care at a local service.It worth the time waiting !

Happy shooting