Pentax Photography System Circa 1984

Pentax Super Program -- The first A Body
Pentax SMC-A 15mm A very unique lens
Pentax SMC-A 24-50mm -- Extra wide to Normal
Pentax SMC-A 35-70 Wide to long with close focusing ability
F/1.7 and F1.4 50mm Normal lenses
SMC-A 100mm Macro F/4.0
SMC-A 135mm Telephoto -- A traditional moderate telephoto
SMC-A 200mm F4 -- Beginning of the Extreme telephoto range
Pentax A* 300mm F/2.8 Extreme Telephoto
Pentax A* 600mm F/5.6 Extreme Telephoto. This f5.6 lens is one the family is extreme telephotos that Pentax produced on special order in the 1980's. They are very long, very heavy, and of such a quality that they can be used with a converter for even longer lengths. This particular model was replaced with an even faster version--an f/4 600 mm.

Background and Perspective

My photos start with a 1984 camera system, not because that is the beginning of SLR cameras, or even when I started using them, but simply because I have photos available of that era. Photography has been around since the 19th century and no effort is made here to present a comprehensive history of photography, or for that matter a comprehensive history of the Single Lens Reflex camera. I do need to define some terms, however, to make sense out of the recent history that I do intend to discuss.

Terms you need to understand.

Single Lens Reflex (SLR:

Fundamental to photography is the need of the photographer to determine what is being photographed. Solutions include a totally separate viewfinder or in some cases a separate lens for viewing. The latter is called a twin lens reflex. A single lens reflex or what is now usually just called an SLR camera has but one lens, and usually a mirror that hangs down behind the lens which allows the photographer to look out through the same lens that will ultimately be used for taking the photograph. When the photo is to be taken the mirror gets out of the way. Conceptually this allows any type of an optical device from a microscope to a telescope to be attached as a 'lens' and the photographer will be able to see what the camera is going to see.

Rangefinder camera:

Early low end cameras often just had a viewfinder which gave the photographer an idea of where the camera was pointed. If the optics were good enough to require or permit focusing this didn't provide focusing information. Argus on the low end and Leica on the high end for many years made range finders. These cameras had 2 view ports one on each side of the camera body and mirrors which superimposed one image on the other. You could rotate on of the mirrors until the images were not 'double'. The amount of adjustment provided a distance target for the lens focus. This worked fairly well for cameras that did not have interchangeable lenses.

35 mm Camera:

Originally called 'miniature' cameras, these cameras got their start in Germany in the mid 1930's. The film format was around as it was the standard format for movies. The idea was to reduce the cost of photography by taking a strip of movie film and exposing it one frame at a time in a 'still camera' for snapshots. It was an idea that would remain popular for 65 years.

Coupled light meter:

Early light meters were separate pieces of equipment. First they were mounted on the camera, and later they were actually mechanically linked so the light meter reading would adjust the camera settings instead of providing information to the photography who was expected to adjust the camera for the correct exposure. The first linkages were made EITHER to the shutter speed control or to the aperture control. This is where the terms 'shutter priority' and 'aperture priority' came from. The photographer would set one manually, and the coupled lightmeter would set the other to provide the correct exposure.

Program Mode:

With the introduction of some intelligence into the camera it was possible to have the light meter set BOTH the aperture AND the shutter speed and select some intelligent combination. Since the shutter speed and the aperture setting are interactive some intelligence or a 'program' was needed to optimize the settings.

Automatic (A-mode):

In the Pentax world early coupled light meters were 'aperture priority' meaning that you manually selected an F-stop on the lens and the lightmeter coupled to the shutter would find a shutter speed that provided the correct exposure based on the F-Stop you hand chosen. When the "program mode" came along, there had to be a way to let the electronics choose the aperture setting. Pentax handled this gracefully by adding an 'A' (for automatic) position to the aperture rings on the lenses. When set to the 'A' position the camera could take control of the aperture settings. The featured 'Super Program' camera, known as the "Program A" outside the United States was the premier camera body to support this new feature beginning in 1983.

APS-C:

The film can that held 35mm film for 35mm cameras was developed in the 1930's. Camera and film makers hatched a plan to 'improve' the design in the 1990's by reducing the film size somewhat and putting it in a 'smart can' The design was suppose to allow smaller smarter cameras. The effort to pry consumers away from the 35mm format was generally not successful, but when SLR type digital cameras were introduced in order to make the cost manageable, they have generally used digital sensors of the APS-C size. The practical consequence of this to the consumer has been that the lenses all have a narrower field of view than they did with 35mm film. The 35mm frame is now called "Full Frame" or "FF".

Early 35mm SLR's

Exa IIb and Exakta of the 1960's

Asahiflex IIA from 1957 with waist Level finder (now called Pentax)

Spotmatic as introduced in 1964. A Pentax legend for success

Exakta of Germany is usually given the credit for popularizing the 35mm SLR camera with a successful model around 1936. The Germans had considerable experience with optics and clockworks, and the two combined made a camera. World War II ended production, and after the war the Exakta facilities being in Dresden were trapped in East Germany, and though production resumed after the way, innovation lagged and the leading edge for the development of photography moved to Japan. Never the less my first camera was a low end EXA IIa which I acquired around 1965 (The only photo I could find is of a Exa IIb which was similar, but as I recall had a higher maximum shutter speed. While made by Exakta, it did not bear their name as it was a low end model. It was fully mechanical--- no battery or lightmeter on it. It did have interchangeable lenses using the Exakta mount, an enclosed penta prism and a maximum shutter speed of 1/300. While you could set both the aperture and the shutter speed you needed a separate light meter or you needed to guess at the exposure. At that time exposure estimating instructions were printed on an instruction sheet boxed with every roll of film, (and later printed on the inside of the box) but really for most outdoor situations you could estimate quite well. The 'starting point' for estimating the exposure was a 'bright sunny day'. You would start by setting the shutter speed to the ASA (speed of the film). 'ASA' has since evolved to being called 'ISO' which is an exposure index more or less detached from the film but which still means the same thing. Thus if you had Ecktachrome 64 slide film in the camera you would set the shutter to 1/60 th of second. Then if it was a sunny landscape you set the lens to F/16. Cloudy bright got an F/11, Cloudy not so bright got an f/8 and dreary got an f5.6 or an f/4.

Pentax was one of the first out the gate with 35mm SLR's from Japan. There were in the market in theh mid 1950's ahead of both Nikon and Canon. The heyday of Pentax's importance and domination began in about 1964 with the introduction of the Spotmatic 35mm SLR. I owned one as my second camera. The light meter was fully integrated but not coupled. You got the right exposure by turning the aperture ring or the shutter dial until the light meter needle centered in the viewfinder. Pentax sold aa million of these in a few years.

Unfortunately, the lens mount which Pentax had borrowed from another European manufacturer, though simple was not up to supporting the next generation of cameras. It was just a simple thread mount. You simply screwed the lens into the front of the camera. It is often called 42mm screw mount reflecting the thread diameter. The immediate problem was that they needed at least 2 mechanical connections that would be very accurate in order to implement the next generation camera. The Screw mount had a single mechanical connection for 'stopping down' the lens. You see the lens needed to be 'wide open' for focusing, and needed to be stopped down so the light meter would know how much light was present when stopped down, and for the exposure. The Spotmatic handled this with a simple 'push pin' and a drive plate. The drive plate in the camera body flopped up and pushed the pin when the lens needed to stop down. The plate was fairly large and would work even if the lens wasn't screwed in exactly the same each time. However to make wide open metering work reliably they needed not only to be able to close the lens down on command but also to know where the aperture ring was set. This called for a different type of mount that would register accurately.

K Mount Replaced Screw Mount in 1975

In 1975 Pentax changed their lens mount from a screw mount to a bayonet mount. The bayonet mount (a twist lock) was called the 'K' mount and with various adaptations is still in use today. Indeed there exists a screw mount to K mount adapter which allows screw mount lenses to be mounted on today's cameras--even the digital ones allowing every Pentax lens ever made to be used on even Pentax's latest and greatest K10D digital body. "Used" does not mean used with all the features the newer lenses have. The K mount provided just the minimal functions required for the day---2 mechanical connections. It was to work for 9 years without change.

My third camera of significance was a Pentax K2. This was the top of the line model that came out with the introduction of the K mount in 1975. Though only made for a couple of years, it set the base for features expected of cameras of the day. In retrospect it was a transitional model. It was not only fully mechanical in that it would function as cameras had for years without a battery, it was also electronic, in that with a battery the electrics could take control of the shutter and set it anywhere from 1/1000th of a second to 8 seconds to provide the exposure chosen by the light meter. All you had to do was to focus and shoot. Results of course were better if you chose an intelligent aperture setting so the required shutter speed wasn't something ridiculous. The K2 did it all for the day, but was expensive because it was a fully mechanical camera within an electronic camera. I used mine for many years.

The K2 was soon followed by the M series for 'miniature' in which Pentax stripped out the mechanical shutter clock works and made the camera body very small--one of the smallest 35mm cameras of the day. the ME and the ME Super were popular and successful. Also on the low end there was the match needle K1000---an all time best seller that appeared and was successfully sold for over 20 years.

Super Program / Program A and KA mount

The six contacts added in the KA mount. Only some contact anything on an given lens suggesting they are binary switches

Pentax perhaps reached their apex with the introduction of the "Program A" or "Super Program" featured in the photos here in about 1983 or 1984. The 'A' series brought a modification to the lens mount by adding some electrical contacts, and the "A" position to the aperture ring. This allowed the 'program' cameras that determined both the shutter and aperture speeds so you only needed to 'focus and shoot'--a big technical step from the K2 design which required you to select a 'sensible' Aperture. However, I did not buy one of these right away. My K2 worked fine, and setting an aperture that was 'sensible' wasn't that difficult so I used my K2 (indeed until I dropped it and broke it) before buying a Super Program over ebay years later. The lens mount with the "A" position on the Aperture ring and the electrical contacts on the mount is known as the KA mount. Pentax has never explained how the series of contacts work on the KA mount but it is generally understood that they provide information relating to the F stop range that the lens is capable of. This third connection was required so that a program mode camera could tell when it was 'out of range' in setting the aperture.

In the late 1980's Pentax made a serious run at the profession photographer market with a full line of lenses from 180 degree fish eyes to extreme telephoto as long as 2000mm, but alas, Nikon and Canon rolled over the top of them. By 1990 Auto Focus was the feature to have. Pentax was an early announcer of a product that wasn't successful and sort of turned their back on the SLR market, instead making huge numbers of low end 'point and shoot' cameras. These small inexpensive cameras generally used 35mm film but did not have interchangeable lenses. Their SLR line was a succession of plastic looking bodies which were mostly forgettable. Although the F series lenses (for Focus) began to appear as early as 1987 (to be replaced with the FA series in a couple of years Pentax was having a hard time on the marketing end with their SLR product line. Though introduced in 1987 the auto focus was so poorly accepted that they continued to sell manual focus cameras for a decade until 1997.

Pentax finally got the bodies right with the ZX series in the mid 1990's (called the MZ series outside the US. While plastic, they were retro in appearance, and I happily bought a ZX5n in 1997 with autofocus, but that is for the next page as this page is about the 'A' series and the Super Program.

The family of 'A' series lenses is huge. Although they did not support auto focus, they were made well after auto focus became available and there are all flavors of primes and zooms. I show here just a few of them in a wide range.