A Personal History of the Heiland/Asahi Pentax H2/S2

<p><strong>A Personal History of the Heiland/Asahi Pentax H2/S2 </strong><br /><em>with digressions on my personal 50 years of 35mm shooting, Kodachrome, the Oroville Dam, and German Expressionism.</em><br /><br /><strong>H2</strong><br />I've posted a number of times about my idea that the original Pentax H2 is one of the classic "beautiful" 35mm SLRs. My discussion in another post of an Olympus OM-1 ( <a href="../classic-cameras-forum/00Y2PJ">link</a> ), got me back to thinking about the Pentax again.<br /><br />A Honeywell Heiland Pentax H2 was in fact my first quality camera, bought new by me. I sold it many years ago in 1971 when I bought my Nikon equipment to attach to a PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 perspective control lens. As I get older, as do many of us on the Classic Manual Cameras forum, I get all nostalgic-y (as Sarah might say, Palin that is, not our own Sarah) about those early days when we were still children, more or less. That's the only point to this post, so if you don't want to wander all over the place with me, now is the time to switch to another thread.<br /><br />I always rather regretted getting rid of that Pentax and my old Praktica FX2 body, so when I went on eBay, I naturally eventually got another -- Actually the replacement was a kind of oddity, an Asahi Pentax H2. Most Asahis were S2s and most H2s were Heiland or Honeywell, so I'm not sure where the one(s) I now have are from. Somewhere I saw a note that the Asahi Pentax was sold in South Africa as an H2 for some reason, but my 'new' ones were from vendors in the USA. The one worked sort of, before I dropped it, so now I have another one that is pristine, but not working. One of these winter nights, perhaps Dr, JDM von Frankenstein can reanimate one from the two. [is there an emoticon for intense leering? here is where it would go].</p>

<p>Anyhow, here is (one of) my present Asahi Pentax H2s and an illustration of the prism engraving and semi-automatic lens on my original Pentax model (the arrow points to the original form of the semi-automatic reset for the Takumar 55mm f/2).</p><div></div>

<p>Here are some of my first pictures taken with my brand new camera in the summer of 1960. The B&W is my very first roll through the camera--Plus-X film. A couple of my old friends are horsing around with the concept of having faith. At the upper right is a North Dakota shot taken with Kodachrome ASA 10. Still fresh after fifty (50!) years. On the bottom right is one of the Agfacolor CN images - scanned from the negative, not the incredibly dirty slide made from it at the time.</p>

<p>Regardless, I took my new Pentax into the field for my first "dig" in North Dakota in 1960. I discovered many things that summer with my new camera. <br />I found out that you have to make sure the rewind knob is rotating or there might be a chance that the film is not going through the camera at all. I found out much later that non-Kodak Ektachrome film was much more likely to shift colors over the years than Ektachrome processed by Kodak. I also discovered much later, that Kodachrome (ASA 10 at the time) was incredibly stable if you didn't project it too much. I discovered that it didn't make any sense at all to shoot Agfa color negative film and have slides made from it. The results had interesting color, but looked like they were processed in a dust factory. I also shot some black and white film before I went into the field to try out my new camera and discovered how really crappy local B&W processing could be.</p><div></div>

<p><strong>Oroville Dam Spillway Project</strong><br />The following year, 1961, took me out to California. I was hired as an archaeologist for part of the Feather River Dam project (now known as Oroville Dam), specifically archaeological salvage of the spillway area. We were digging what were prehistoric to very late prehistoric (read Gold Rush) settlements, probably by people whose descendants were known as Maidu. These were in an area where gold was found early, and there were people there in 1961 still panning for gold. They claimed to be able to make about $20 (1961 $) a day. There were also some short tunnels into quartz veins near the sites. Here are some house floors from what is today the very end of the spillway.<br />The top picture is a pine-tree aerial of two house floors, and the bottom picture is of a somewhat similar house in use in the late 19th c. in the Oroville area. Both of these were on the first or second roll of Kodachrome II that I ever shot. The historic shot is of a picture in an Oroville museum.<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>German Expressionism</strong><br /> <br /> I had come all the way from Kansas to northern California, where I had no permanent residence or base other than the field camp in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. So while the other members of the crew rotated back to Sacramento to their homes, I just worked through, 7 days a week. Finally, I took my own accumulated off time for the Fourth of July week, and borrowed a VW 800 or 900cc or some such (it had a hard time making it over the hills) and drove down and went to San Francisco where I stayed at the YMCA. Okay, I was an innocent, but it was cheap and clean.<br /><br />Have you ever had the feeling of Fate, of Kismet, of something that is "meant to be"?<br />In a very much under-appreciated book called <em>Floater</em>, Calvin Trillin described the feeling that every time he came back as a "floater" (a sort of migratory temporary editorial worker, or inkback) to the fictional international desk of a weekly newsmagazine, the people in Cyprus would run down the streets shouting something to the effect that "Tillin (or rather his character in the novel) is back on the international desk, time to start up the troubles again!"<br /><br /><br />When I got to the Bay area I went to the art museum, among other places, in SF -the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. As it happened, the major show was a traveling exhibit of German Exxpressionists. Hmm. My Father was a post-Impressionist painter, so I wasn't too sure about the German Expressionists. Okay, I go over to the UC campus at Berkeley. Naturally they are having a German Expressionist exhibit. For the next eight or nine years as I went to go to most parts of the USA, carrying my Pentax H2, I had the feeling that there were curators frantically sending messages:<br />"JDM is coming, we have to mount a German Expressionist exhibit." Anyhow it seemed that way. <br /><br />As a result, I really, though gradually, came to appreciate German Expressionism in painting (always liked it in film). Naturally, when I came to southern Illinois to teach, I found that the permanent collections of the St. Louis Art Museum was extremely strong in German Expressionists. A local magnate had become a patron of Max Beckman after WWII, as a matter of fact, so there is a superb collection of his paintings and many others besides.<br /><br />Here are paintings from the St. Louis Art Museum - by Meidner-Burning City, Kokoschka-Maler und Modell II, and Max Beckman-Acrobats.<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p>Well, that's all of this personal memoir.</p>

<p>How about the rest of you? Is there some sort of "German Expressionism" in your own history that you were cool about to start with and then came to appreciate as you learned?<br /><br /></p>

<p>My first SLR was a Tower 26, $25 in a camera shop on Cape Cod USA back in or about early 1970's. No lens was available so I used later lenses with A/M switch and preset East German lenses. The reason was this camera did not have a "kick down" lever to stop down an automatic lens. This camera was sold by Sears Roebuck and was the replacement for the AsahiFlex waist level body. The Pentax model was essentially the same camera with exception of the nameplate and it's origin was Japan ca. 1957-58. </p>

<p>My father, "Herr Holz," has an expressionistic past. Present too. He won't stop expressing himself (as in shut up).</p>

<p>Interesting story JDM. What did you dig in N. Dakota? Any fascinating black Greek ceramic?</p>

<p>Now I think I understand why you mentioned the H2 specifically in a recent post as one of your "prettiest cameras of all time", even though it's cosmetically almost indistinguishable from the other post-Asahiflex, pre-Spotmatic Pentax cameras. The personal connection counts for a lot.</p>

<p>German Expressionism is a fascinating style of art and reflects an interesting period in European history. I think it holds up in retrospect far better than its Italian contemporary, Futurism, which usually seems too much like the high-art version of 1920s science fiction pulp magazine cover paintings. Franz Marc is my personal favorite of the original Expressionist painters, but Kokoschka, Beckmann, and Meidner are wonderful too.</p>

<p>I don't think this is the kind of German Expressionism you had in mind JDM but I recently saw an exhibition of <a href="http://www.neuegalerie.org/exhibitions/messerschmidt">Franz Xaver Messerschmidt's character heads at the Neue Gallerie in NYC</a>. Fascinating stuff.</p>

<p>I guess we always carry a torch for our first love... (mine was a Canon FTb, bought the year they came out, which I still own and use). And some days I miss having the freedom to just up and travel to a city or a countryside, just because it's there. Not that I can really complain of a lack of freedom to come and go as I please, it's just that I don't have the temperament I guess to go stay in a YMCA or a tent or a van anymore.</p>

<p>That's a great chronicle, <strong>JDM</strong>. They <em>are</em> a lovely camera; here's a pic of my S1 with the original semi-auto lens, in this case the f/2.2. The whole outfit still works like a charm. As for artistic revelations; discovering that I actually liked the art of Paul Klee and developing an enduring fascination with the Bauhaus movement in general was pretty significant.</p><div></div>

<p>great post, JDM. always like learning about cool other topics in addition to classic cameras.</p>

<p>Wonderful memories. My Pentax number 1 was a S1a! I was in south Africa. Later I added a Sv(self timer around the rewind crank).Sad to say they were not made for heavy pro usage, which I became..The fault was weak gears and a mirror that liked to stay up, and up, forever UP!My 1st lens was 58mm f2.oBoitar. I regret selling it every day. All it's faults were so neat. Ya see the best is not always wanted or reqd.<br>

The Spotmatic was phenomenal.Used by me,on many fashion shoots(20+ rolls) per session. Other pros borrowed it for their shoots. Advertising,publicity.documentary and press.<br>

I never sold mine! My daughter still uses it(THE SP) inspite of owning a Nikon DSLR.. We both hated the EOS. No idea why. It did everything one wanted. No character. My Nikons added later.The F still my favorite after my Pentax Spotmatic. I added a SP500 a few years ago here in Toronto,for $25.oo<br>

I received a Praktica as a gift. The Jury is still out. I ought to shoot it a bit. A Pentax it ain't.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>even though it's cosmetically almost indistinguishable from the other post-Asahiflex, pre-Spotmatic Pentax cameras</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But the first one is always special, and despite the number sequence, the H2/S2 was the first for me and in the larger market. I've never even seen the earlier ones like the (original) Asahi Pentax with the slow speed dial any place that I have looked. I doubt I want to spend that much if I could find it.</p>

<p>I think that back in those days, the sponsorship by American companies like Honeywell, Beseler, and Bell & Howell were pretty important in getting people to accept Japanese-made products.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>But all the good stuff is Japanese, Doc.<br>

Amazing!<br>

<em>Back to the Future</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I enjoyed the story and history. It makes the camera meaningful. Please tell us more; it "humanizes" the technology and the equipment we use. Thank you. sp.</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing...I have an S1a, specifically sought out because I agree that these are some of the sharpest-looking camera bodies ever made, even if mine is a little beat up.</p>

<p>@ Rick D, your meter on your S1 looks to be the second generation meter. Does it work well? Does your camera shutter speed stop at 500? I believe that the S1 have a 1000 speed that is not shown on the dial. <a href="http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Pentax_%28original%29"> http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Pentax_%28original%29</a> I wonder how they came up with the numbering system as the S3 preceded the S1.<br>

I believe I have a first generation one for my S3. It is rounded and does not have the battery check switch.</p>

<p>My first SLR with an instant return mirror was an S1 with the meter that mounted on top. Memories aside, I still believe it was one of the prettiest mechanical SLRs (without the meter) ever made.</p>