My Pentax MX

<p >I acquired the MX at a local charity shop for the princely sum of £25, and married it up with a 50mm f1.4 lens I had from a while back. This lens has a visible net of fungus lines on one (or more) of the inner elements. I dismantled it as far as I dared but still didn't seem to be getting anywhere near the fungus surface, so I cleaned what I could and put it back together. It doesn't seem to affect the image quality at all.</p><div></div>

<p >The MX was the mechanical shutter member of the ME, ME Super, MV, MG group but was hoped to be of some interest to professionals I believe - hence it has an interchangeable focusing screen. Exposure is adjusted manually via five LEDs in the viewfinder, which has readouts of aperture and shutter speed. Its not easy to change the shutter speed with your eye to the camera, however. The layout and controls are completely conventional.</p>

<p >I ran a 400 iso print film through it. Not a good test perhaps, ans the scans from the local lab weren't great, but here goes.</p>

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<p >It's a little wider than the other M Series cameras to accommodate the horizontal cloth shutter. The others all have vertical metal shutters - it's hard to see why Pentax did this, I would have thought a metal shuttered MX would have been more appealing but what do I know? It's a nice camera to use anyway.</p><div></div>

<p >I initially had problems with it draining the batteries but was able to fix it by adjusting the contacts on the main switch, following excellent advice from the Classic Camera Repair Forum, here if you are interested: </p>

<p ><a href="http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/forum/messages/2/25382.html?1348067052">http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/forum/messages/2/25382.html?1348067052</a></p><div></div>

<p>A few more pictures.</p><div></div>

<p>Another one from Abbey Park. Cardinal Wolsey died at Leicester Abbey, his statue is outside the cafe.</p><div></div>

<p>Another from the Park</p><div></div>

<p>A cottage near my home</p><div></div>

<p>Last one, you may have seen this before in the Modern Film Cameras forum, anyway here it is again. Thanks for looking.</p><div></div>

<p>I like your images, and I always liked the MX although I never owned one. Does the cloth shutter make it relatively more quiet than the other Pentaxes?</p>

<p>Fine sharp images, <strong>John</strong>, with a nice low light. Love the composition and depth in the "Seats" image. That group of Pentaxes <em>were</em> nice cameras to handle, and your f/1.4 Tak certainly doesn't seem to have been degraded by the traces of fungus.</p>

<p>John, nice shots. The lens seems to turn in excellent results.</p>

<p>I had a Pentax MX from the early 1980's for about 20 years. I liked the fully manual controls and the solid feel of the camera which the ME super etc to my mind just didn't have. I think the reason for the traditional rubberised silk, horizontally run shutter was that the camera did not rely on the battery which only powered the meter. With the ME super if you lost battery power you only had a single mechnical speed of 1/125th whereas the MX shutter was unaffected by the battery. I also liked the traffic light meter with its half-stop intervals. The bits which tended to fail with time were the 'magic needle' film loading rods. These are round the take up spool and allow film to be loaded more easily than with the traditional metal clip system .I also seem to remember that changing the shutter speed reqiured an iron grip as the knob was quite stiff. So John, thanks for the trip down memory lane and all the best with your MX.</p><div></div>

<p>That photo rang a bell so I googled for "Turner North Sea Mist" and this picture came up on top, so I suspect I'm hardly the first to make the connection. Well, anyway, nice capture.</p>

<p>My mx is one of my favorite cameras. It has a flash sync issue that I thought about getting repaired, but don't use it enough to justify the expense. It will not fire the flash at speeds of 1/60th or slower, but will for the higher speed.</p>

One of my top 3 film cameras I owned an MX through 87-91 with a 50/1.4. The size and weightbare newarvperfect in my

hands, cloth shutter makes a lovely sound, and the way you can see the shutter and aperture (via a judas window) in the

finder is really good. I picked up another last year, with a 50/1.7 (at the Braderie in Lille, which was a great place to go

camera hunting), for about the same money as yours an consider it a bargain.

<p>Thanks to all for the comments. Mark, I tried my ME Super against the MX, the shutter sounds are very similar, the MX perhaps slightly deeper in tone but there might be a bit more vibration with the ME Super. I recall some criticism about this at the time, when there was a feeling that such small cameras as the M-series weren't suitable for metal shutters. Perhaps thats why Pentax used cloth shutter in the MX? <br>

Colin I agree the MX shutter is battery independent, however I can't see why Pentax couldn't include a vertical mechanical shutter, like in my Chinon CM4 for example.</p>

<p>John, I think the reason the MX had the mechanical shutter was that it was designed for the advanced amateur or professional photographer at a time when auto exposure was seen as a bit suspect. So the auto exposure ME super etc were seen as more mainstream amateur use. This can be seen in the wide range of MX-specific accessories such as the focusing screens which could not be used on any other M series camera. The MX, while looking like the rest of the M series, was much more like the earlier and bigger K series cameras. So the MX carried on a mechanical tradition in a small size while the other M series cameras started a new electronic tradition. So all tastes were catered for. The later LX which was aimed squarely at professionals used a hybrid mechanical/ electrical shutter where the slow speeds from 1/60 down were electronically controlled while the fast speeds were mechanical.</p>

<p>Matthew, I don't know about Turner but I was very pleased with how the shot came out!</p>

<p>I vaguely remember some of the Pentax advertsing blurb of the time which said the MX allowed one to be 'master of ones own destiny' or some such thing. i.e. none of this amateur auto-expoosure nonsense. You have to remember that auto-exposure was a big issue at the time - not up to film v digital levels but getting there. Some people loved the brave new world of auto-exposure and some liked the old work-it-out-for-yourself ways and thought auto-exposure would rot your brain. So Pentax catered for both schools of thought.</p>

<p>I was given an MX a couple of months ago. I'm amazed at how small it is and how large its viewfinder is.</p>

<p>Nice, sharp images. I like the colour rendering a lot. Seems very well balanced. Also your choice of scenes. Thanks, sp.</p>

<p>Shots look really good to me, and you live in a great looking place. The M series cameras were always really nice to use, my wife had a ME Super for a few years.<br>

The 50mm 1.4 is a direct descendant of the Super Takumar on the Spotmatics, and as such is one of the finest 50's out there.</p>

<p>That was a great find, John. The MX has been my main camera for quite a while now. It is very easy to use<br>

and has a great metering system although the LEDs are not the brightest and hard to see sometimes. Try<br>

to find one of the Pentax-M f1.7/50 lenses. It is also a great lens.</p>

I think the lens performs well. I never would have gotten the thing back together so yount your blessings. The other poster confirmed my thoughts as to the MX being geared toward the"conservative" photographer who who considered the new whiz bang electric technology suspect and kept the control with the photographer

<p>And Les, don't forget the OM-1 and its cloth shutter!</p>

<p>Great images. The MX had enough "system" features to make most advanced users (even a few pros perhaps) happy. Interchangeable focusing screens (but not finders) and bulk film backs were a couple that come to mind. A whole series of M Takumars designed to take advantage of the compact MX and ME bodies were made. I like using the 40mm f2.8 on mine.</p>