A customer recently put themselves on our Wait List for a Pentax K1000 with a custom black paint scheme.  When we notified our repair technician of the request he responded that he had just done a K1000 in white that he was preparing to bring in and were we sure they didn't want a white one instead?  He was joking of course because he was more than happy to whip up a custom black K1000 as well and both cameras arrived at our shop simultaneously.  Either camera on its own is pretty cool looking but imagine owning both of these and carrying one on each shoulder.  THAT would be a cool kit!

Mike, our repair tech, has been perfecting his recoating of cameras over the past couple of years.  Mostly he focuses on solely camera bodies, but more and more he has been recoating matching kits of cameras plus lens.  Here he did a Pentax K1000 with 50mm f2 in matching red.  It is a pretty combo and we like the idea of having a custom camera with matching lens.

It is hard to go wrong with a K1000 - so many of us here at the shop learned on one of these cameras.  It is even more enticing when that K1000 has such flair as this one!

This Pentax K1000 came in to us shortly before Christmas '22.  Our repair technician, Mike Knight, has had a hobby of sorts repainting cameras with cool new color schemes.  Over the past few years he has gotten better and more sophisticated as his methods have evolved.  He has been experimenting with matching cameras and lenses, so imagine our pleasure on seeing this K1000 in deep maroon with a maroon-barrelled 50mm lens to top it all off.

The Pentax K1000 is a well-known workhorse -- it may be the definitive "student camera." Like a Royal typewriter, it is a reliable mechanical companion. This copy has been dressed up in shimmering rose gold / champagne / bronze paint by our technician to help it stand out from the crowd. 

If you ever want to go down a colorful rabbit hole, research the history (or psychology) of colors.  Pick a shade and lose an evening to reading one fascinating article after another.  Let's use blue as an example...

In Europe in the Middle Ages, blue was a color more valuable than gold.  It was the color of wealth and royalty,  imported from Afghanistan, the color pigment was made from grinding up the lapis lazuli stone.  The color blue is not mentioned once in Homer's epics The Iliad and The Odyssey.  In fact, most ancient cultures across the globe developed words for black, white, red, green, and yellow long before any words were attributed to the color blue.  Pablo Picasso experimented with an entire phase of blue, painting in only shades of that color for four years.  Pharaoh Tutankhamum's golden funeral mask was adorned with lapis lazuli and faience, a form of ancient ceramic that was often given a blue lustre. Nowadays, from Mega Man to blue jeans to macaws, the color blue seems to be everywhere, both highly symbolic and highly common.  And yet, you still don't see too many blue cameras, do you? 

To be fair, you don't see many colors at all in a lot of film cameras, outside of the Fuji Instax and Lomography realms.  Analog cameras, such as the Pentax K1000, are dominated by black and chrome (with maybe a touch of red here and there).  Our repair tech, Mike, has single-handedly taken it upon himself to introduce a bit more color into the world of these cameras.  That is where this translucent blue K1000 comes in!  Mike uses the original chrome finish of the camera underneath a translucent blue powder coat to produce this distinctive look. 

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This atomic pink Pentax K1000 is a camera that would make even Willy Wonka's eyes go a bit wider.

Those of you who frequent our shop must know Mike Knight by now.  Before he came to work for us, he ran his own camera repair business - Knight Camera Repair, which he and his father started in 1997. Before Knight Camera repair, Mike worked for CameraWorks.  The other day he was tuning up a Pentax K1000 that we had brought in to get refurbished and he found this old CameraWorks sticker inside the camera from September of 1989 with his tech initials.  After all these years, the two were reunited!  It is kind of amazing to think about all the cameras that are out there in the local community making photos today that, at some point, passed through Mike's hands.

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There is not always a sparkle to shine.  Dust will never settle in our movement, nor does a camera lay on a shelf.  This past week in Portland we've seen rain return, lightning streak, and snow blanket hillside trees.  Before it, we were soaking in the spring sun––gracing our bodies and cameras alike.⠀

The Pentax K1000 is commonly perceived as a student camera. It really is a perfect camera to carry with you whether your hands are accustomed to the feeling of a camera filling them, or if the experience is brand new to you.  Light enough to be with you throughout the day, the K1000 inspires a pause to admire the new spring lilies poking up towards the blue skies.  It is also simple to use with an intuitive, built-in light meter, making the lazy summer evenings easy to capture.

While some cameras are heavier and more apt to sit through long winters, we imagine that a camera like this will never sit still.  When you go out on the streets, what is the camera that you will carry - is it new to you, a recent find uncovered, or is it the one that you learned on?

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We don't often see the Pentax 50mm f/1.2 lens - especially an early version like this - come through our inventory.  While no 50mm f/1.2 lens should be considered for its sharpness, rumor has it that this lens was one of the sharpest 50mm f/1.2 lenses made by any manufacturer.  We cannot easily confirm these rumors. ⠀ ⠀

Peek at the world through this lens wide open and you will be given the dreamiest rendition of the scene in front of you.  Try bringing it into that dim, no-flash-allowed location and your camera will be soaking up just a bit more light; perhaps, enabling a fast enough shutter speed to render sharper images. ⠀ ⠀

However you slice it, this lens is a beauty.  Pair it up with a brown leatherette K1000 SE and you've got quite a match.  Keep your eyes peeled for these cameras, by the way.  Not only do the mid-generation versions have this fetching brown leather covering but, they also had split prism focusing screens, making those low-light shots even easier to successfully pull off. ⠀

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The Pentax K1000 is often referred to as "The student camera."  It is the embodiment of simplicity.  Originally introduced in 1976, the camera enjoyed a production run lasting until 1997.  This means a squillion of these cameras were produced over those two decades.  A 'squillion' cameras translates into vast numbers for both purchase and as a supply of spare parts.  All those spare parts allow K1000s to be easily refurbished, not that they often need it - we once saw a K1000 survive a house fire, quite literally.⠀ ⠀

The camera has little in the way of bells and whistles, giving the user just the three controls they need to make pictures: aperture, shutter and focus.   Imagine for a moment, in a world where cameras drown us in functions, custom settings and menus, there stands the K1000 with its three controls, bringing you all that you actually need.  Metering on the K1000 is also quite straight-forward.   The camera uses a simple metering system; a lone, black needle in the viewfinder indicates your exposure.   Get the needle in the middle, and exposure is good.⠀ ⠀

Pentax is one of the few brands that has largely left their lens mount unchanged through the years.  This means that most Pentax lenses mount to most Pentax cameras.  This is a handy feature, in that it allows Pentax camera owners to pick from a much larger selection of lenses.   It also means, that if you ever upgrade your K1000 to an auto focus or digital body, you can continue to use all your old lenses.  The downside of this continuity is that there is much more competition for the same lenses; thus, prices can be a bit higher for similar Pentax lenses compared to  other brands.⠀ ⠀

Beyond the disdvantage of potentially more expensive lenses, the K1000 lacks some of useful features such as self-timer, DoF preview, and a multiple exposure lever.  Other than that, this camera is well built, reliable, and easy to use.  If you are in the market for a Pentax SLR, and a K1000 isn't available or doesn't quite float your boat,  consider looking into the Pentax MX, Pentax ME Super, and Pentax K2.

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The Pentax K1000 is already a legend of a camera.  Its simple, steady approach to assisting photographers making their images has deservedly earned it the reputation it enjoys.  How could we possibly improve upon this brilliant machine?  Is there a way for it to get any better?...  In short - oh yeah.⠀ ⠀

How about blue leatherette for starters? Our repair tech, Michael Knight, recently reskinned this one as part of a CLA.  But wait, it gets even better.  How about decking out your K1000 with a 15mm wide angle lens, letting your K1000 (or any other K-mount camera for that matter) go wider than it's ever gone before?⠀ ⠀

The 15mm f/3.5 was the widest angled rectilinear lens Pentax ever produced for the film camera line up.  It has approximately a 100 degree field of view horizontally.  Though it looks like a fisheye, it isn't.  Straight lines remain (fairly) straight.  The bulbous front optic did preclude the inclusion of a front filter thread, but thankfully this camera comes with four built-in filters: yellow, orange, red and UV.⠀ ⠀

Just because your K1000 revels in its simplicity, doesn't mean that this is the only fashion in which this camera can excel.⠀ ⠀

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The widest non-fisheye lens that Pentax ever built for their K-mount cameras was this magnificent 15mm f/3.5.  The design came from a collaboration with Zeiss.  Initially, it was constructed with an aspherical element, but that version was quickly discontinued (most likely due to cost issues).  Even with the spherical element, the lens performs quite well. ⠀ ⠀

As expected of a lens this wide, overall sharpness greatly improves when stopped down; images become reasonably sharp in the corners by the time you reach f/8.  This lens was also designed without a front filter thread but comes with four built-in filters: UV, yellow, orange, and red.  How much fun would it be to take this guy out with a roll of Ilford SFX or JCH Street Pan and do some ultra-wide angle, infrared photography on your K1000 or ME Super?

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The grass is always greener when your K1000 is green as well.  Before this camera, our repair tech, Mike, had not yet done a K1000 in green; now he can scratch that off his bucket list of camera servicing.  It turned out so nicely. ⠀ ⠀

An interesting side note on this camera, despite coming in at the tail end of autumn, when most of the color has faded to brown, it got us looking for green companions to pair it up with for this image.  Lo and behold, there is a surprising amount of green out there this time of year.  The grass is all freshly growing.  The trees are covered in lush moss.  While we don't usually associate winter with lots of color, the green is definitely out there.  The simple act of carrying this camera around for a morning made us pay a bit more attention to this detail we would have otherwise missed.

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An understated legend of a camera. The number of photographers out there who have cut their teeth on a Pentax K1000 must be impressive.

Why you would buy this?

You like your cameras to be Armageddon proof - it will survive a lot more than you will.

You have a natural allergy to bells and whistles - no frills here, just the functions you need.

Because your photo teacher tells you to buy this camera - and photo teachers are always right, right?

Right.

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Have camera, will travel. And if you are traveling, consider the Pentax K1000.

They are hardy beasts and travel well. They'll brave the deserts of Africa, the cold temperatures of the Yukon, the salty air of the Mediterranean and the humid jungles of South America.

They are simple: easy to learn and use. Their shutters are mechanical. If your battery dies out in the wilderness, this camera keeps on clicking. They are sturdy. Drop it off your bike while descending the French Alps and it will weather the tumble better than you will. We saw one survive a house fire once, so they are virtually fireproof as well.

Yes, Have Pentax, Will Travel is a good motto indeed.

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What is better than a Pentax K1000?

Why, a blue one of course!

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When the weather gets tough, the tough pull out even tougher cameras.  They don't get much tougher than the Pentax K1000.  We've seen one of these survive a house fire.  As in, when the fire department had put out the fire and allowed the family back in to salvage what they could, they found their K1000.  The meter didn't work, it was covered in soot, and it wreaked of smoke, but the film advance and shutter still worked.  They sent the camera into our shop for cleaning and to fix the meter and, lo and behold, two weeks later that camera was as good as new!

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This one goes out to all you Pentax users that have been waiting to have a cheap Russian macro lens for your K1000s, ME Supers, or even DSLRs.  Get a load of this Zenitar-K2 50mm f/2 macro lens!  It's cheap - both in price and build quality.  Just about $30 gets you a plastic barrel, stiff aperture, and not the smoothest focusing in the world... but, hey, it's $30.  It's mostly macro, magnifying up to 1:5 - up to 1/5th life size - which is closer than your average 50mm, but short of standard macro lenses.  At f/2, this lens it will have some nice bokeh.  Russian and Soviet lenses are always kind of fun and, more often than not, have a different look to them from other lenses, so we always like to take note when one passes through.

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Over the course of the Easter weekend we somehow got onto the topic of our favorite camera secrets - their "Easter eggs".

We brainstormed all the ones we knew of, many of which seemed to involve various Pentax cameras.  For various reasons, we settled on the Pentax K1000 mirror lock-up trick.   It seems that if you flick the shutter button on the K1000 with just the right amount of pressure, somewhere just shy of triggering the shutter, you can pre-release the mirror.  It takes a bit of practice to do it consistently but there you go. Enjoy your Pentax Easter egg.⠀ ⠀ 

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Two of our favorite things: local coffee and local photographers. ⠀ ⠀

Our friend, Eric Loeffler, makes great coffee down the street from us, at Two Stroke Coffee, and also happens to make great photographs with his Pentax K1000.  We love how his work holds its own distinct style - we'd recognize it anywhere - check it out at https://www.ericjloeffler.com.   We appreciate the community we live and work in - not just our local neighborhood but the greater, global photographic community as well.  We take what opportunities we can to celebrate that, hence this post, about a local coffee-maker/record producer/photographer/great guy. Thanks for being a part of all this Eric!