Canon (or Nikon) equivalent to the pentax k-1000

[mikel r.]

I now own a canon Elan 7 and love the camera but I am looking for a

durable all manual camera to throw in the truck and go to the hills

with. I hike and camp quite alot and would love to have an

inexpensive manual camera to suppplement the canon I have. I had a K-

1000 and loved it but they are overcharging for the things even on e-

bay. The canon ae-1, a better camera than the k-1000 in my opinion,

is cheaper but not all manual. This leads me to the question, is

there a canon all manual camera equla in durability to the k-1000?

How about Nikon or nikkormat, etc.? I am interested in your

sugestions. I am not asking which camera is better but I would like

a few suggestions fitting this criteria. Thank you very much for

your time.

Mike

[tod_hart]

A Canon FTBn was a tough, manual camera, but it like all the mechanical shutter Canons are over 25 years old now and take mercury batteries. Except for the last version of the F1, which would be considerably more cost than a good used K1000.

 

Nikon has more offerings in this class. The FM, FM2 or FM2n are all manual cameras. The Nikkormat FT2 or FT3 are both solid, manual cameras. The FT2 takes older Non-AI lenses. Both take readily available silver oxide batteries or equivalent. Older Nikkormats like the FTN take mercury batteries.

 

But I doubt if you'd find any of these in decent condition for less cost than a K1000.

 

My personal carry-around-in-the-truck camera is a rough looking Olympus OM1 and 50/1.8 Zuiko lens ($51 on eBay) with a dead light meter. I only use it for Tri-X and can usually guess the exposure close enough for most things.

[bj_bignell]

My Yashica FX-3 Super has proven to be really durable. It has a good center-weighted meter, and can take Zeiss glass (the 50mm/1.7 is not expensive). The Yashica/Yashinon lenses are cheaper, but not as nice as Zeiss, or even a good Pentax. It uses readily-available LR-44 batteries for the meter, but is otherwise fully manual.

 

The only thing I don't like is the "ka-thunk" of the mirror; it's a little loud for some situations.

 

BJ

[dominic_.]

Nikon FM, Nikon F or F2, some Nikkormats...

[richard_oleson]

Canon: FTb, TLb, TX. If you don't mind stop-down metering, there's also the FT and TL.

 

Nikon: Nikkormat FTN, FT2, FT3; Nikon FM, FM2, FM2N. The newer FM10 is also manual, but not made by Nikon and doesn't have quite the feel of the others.

 

:)=

[yakim_peled1]

I'd put a 50/1.8 on the 7e, set the camera and lens to manual mode and voila! you have a cheap manual camera for only 65$ more (the price of the lens).

 

I really can't see what will you gain by adding another body and lenses i.e. another camera system. I'd understand if they were not in the same format (large/medium/35mm/APS) but to have two 35mm camera systems at the same time, why ?

 

Happy shooting ,

Yakim.

[david_gonzalez]

When I drove over the road I took my Minolta SRT-102 with 50/1.7 with me. Having had it for a quarter of a century, I know it can take physical abuse, like washboard roads, the occasional fall to the ground (oops!), and both heat(112 in the cab) and cold without skipping a beat. Maybe my Elan 7e could have too, but I didn't feel like risking it. There are plenty of SRT's of various flavors and Minolta compatible MF lenses out there at good prices, so you might want to consider one of these. They used mercury cells for power, but I've found the CRIS adapter paired with silver cells to work just fine. If you get one and have it cleaned and adjusted, conversion to 1.5v from 1.35v is usually included from what I hear, so you could do without the adapter.

[Greg M]

Let's see....you had a K1000 and right now you are using an Elan 7. Do you still have the Pentax lenses you used with the K1000? If so, stay in the Pentax line and look for a nice MX- a tremendous camera. If you want to stay with the bigger sized bodies look for a KX, which is like the K1000, but with a self-timer, mirror lock and much better, more accurate SBC meter- just a much better feature set overall than a K1000, which is priced way too high for what you get.