Dating back to 1957, the original Asahi Pentax camera was the successor to the Asahiflex SLR camera. This camera makes use of the M42 threaded lens mount and features an eye-level prism, folding rewind crank, and rapid advance film lever. The camera does not have automatic aperture diaphragm capabilities, so the aperture had to be stopped down manually, prior to exposure. The shutter speed range is split between two dials, a high speed dial on top of the camera and a low speed dial on the camera's face. The Asahi Pentax does not have an in-camera meter.
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The Original Asahi Pentax
Pentax SLRs have quite the history; it doesn't go back much farther than this Asahi Pentax circa 1957. Pentax made a few other cameras in the five or six years before this version (waist level finder only cameras called the Asahiflex), but the Asahi Pentax was one of the first big steps in a design that would influence decades of Pentax cameras to follow. This camera is like the great grandparent to the Pentax DSLRs of today.