Pentax Super Program
Posted: Fri May 18, 2018 6:43 pm
Got one for $6 plus $5 shipping because of a defect to the camera body on one corner. Somebody must have banged it into something at some time. But.. the space behind the crack isn't in the film compartment so no big deal. This is Super Program number two for me. The first one I got for a total of about $20 looked perfect but had mirror lockup issues. I haven't been able to get around to figuring out how to fix that one yet.....though I've tried various things that didn't work. The seller of this latest one assured me that the camera fired and the mirror wasn't stuck...just the possible light leak and whatever else that could be wrong. So I took a chance by surmising that the crack wasn't in a place that would produce a light leak on the film and the rest of the camera might work. And it seems to have paid off in my favor for a change.
The Pentax Super Program camera was the top of the line Pentax non auto focus SLR of the mid 80's. It would, with a Pentax lens with the auto ability, do Full auto in that it would read the light and pick the shutter speed and the aperture if set to A on the lens...with manual focusing. Unfortunately, although it shows you the shutter speed it doesn't show you the aperture picked in full auto. Keep it in auto and take out of A on the lens and you select the aperture and let the camera pick the shutter. Put the selector in M and put the lens in A and you can pick the shutter speed with the black buttons up or down and the camera picks the aperture. Or put it in M and take the A off the lens and you pick aperture and shutter....my preferred way. And... the selections show up in two windows at the bottom of the viewing screen, and the shutter speed on top of the camera and... those selections are lighted up with the help of two windows in the top of the prizim housing.
Well... the meter works...sometimes you have to switch the selector back and forth to get it powered up. The M setting works probably best and most reliably. The indications show if what you have selected for exposure choices is right on or over or under and by how many stops. I liked that feature.
The biggest drawback for me is that the lens I was using was difficult to focus to the point of reliable sharpness with my old man crappy eyesight. However...for what I paid for the camera... I'm happy.
The Pentax Super Program camera was the top of the line Pentax non auto focus SLR of the mid 80's. It would, with a Pentax lens with the auto ability, do Full auto in that it would read the light and pick the shutter speed and the aperture if set to A on the lens...with manual focusing. Unfortunately, although it shows you the shutter speed it doesn't show you the aperture picked in full auto. Keep it in auto and take out of A on the lens and you select the aperture and let the camera pick the shutter. Put the selector in M and put the lens in A and you can pick the shutter speed with the black buttons up or down and the camera picks the aperture. Or put it in M and take the A off the lens and you pick aperture and shutter....my preferred way. And... the selections show up in two windows at the bottom of the viewing screen, and the shutter speed on top of the camera and... those selections are lighted up with the help of two windows in the top of the prizim housing.
Well... the meter works...sometimes you have to switch the selector back and forth to get it powered up. The M setting works probably best and most reliably. The indications show if what you have selected for exposure choices is right on or over or under and by how many stops. I liked that feature.
The biggest drawback for me is that the lens I was using was difficult to focus to the point of reliable sharpness with my old man crappy eyesight. However...for what I paid for the camera... I'm happy.
