VINTAGE Asahi Pentax K1000 K 1000 35mm SLR Film Camera

VINTAGE Asahi Pentax K1000 K 1000 35mm SLR Film Camera GREAT CONDITION\

The K1000's extraordinary longevity makes it a historically significant camera, despite its very ordinary design. Although the K1000 was already obsolete when it was first released, its simplicity was a great virtue and earned it an unrivaled popularity as a basic but sturdy workhorse, particularly suited to educating inexperienced photographers. The Pentax K1000 eventually sold over three million units.

The K1000 was an almost all metal, mechanically (springs, gears, levers) controlled, manual-focus SLR with manual exposure control. It was completely operable without batteries. It only needed batteries (one A76 or S76, or LR44 or SR44) for the light metering information system. This consisted of a center-the-needle exposure control system using a galvanometer needle pointer moving between vertically arranged +/– over/underexposure markers at the right side of the viewfinder to indicate the readings of the built-in full-scene averaging, cadmium sulfide (CdS) light meter versus the actual camera settings.

Almost all lenses with the Pentax K-AF and K-AF2 autofocus lens mounts (introduced 1987 and 1991, respectively) would also work in manual focus mode. The exceptions are Pentax's newest SMC-Pentax FA J (1997) and SMC-Pentax DA (2004) types, which lack an aperture control ring. They will mount on the K1000, but have restricted functionality. Asahi Optical sold the Mount Adapter K to allow their older Takumar screw mount lenses to be used on K mount cameras (with limitations), but it is now a collector's item. In 2006, Pentax said that it had manufactured more than 24 million lenses over fifty years that could provide at least some functionality on the K1000. The number of independently manufactured Pentax-compatible lenses is also huge, but indeterminate.