I have not posted anything here since early November. For me, that's a bit unusual, since I have posted something every month - sometimes several times a month. However, I have been busy writing and researching for a book that I plan to have out sometime in 2025, tentatively titled "Takumar Trek - the joy of working with a Pentax Spotmatic."
This is sort of a passion project of mine, since I have always thought that the Spotmatic series and some of their forebears, the Pentax SV, for example, are excellent cameras, and were designed to be as unobtrusive to the photographer as possible. Culminating with the Spotmatic F, which features open-aperture metering, these cameras are a delight to use. However, the lenses are legendary, and I'm writing about them, too. This has also caused me to go through my archives of negatives and find the films that were shot with Spotmatics. So, I have also been scanning in negatives that I haven't looked at for over 20 years. It's a good reminder that photography's tools may have gotten more complex and (ahem) more expensive, but a 50 year-old camera can be used for making good photographs.
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| A bunch of Super Takumars |
In the process of writing, I've learned more about the predecessors to the Spotmatics, and have acquired a few more of them. I've also had the opportunity to try out what was supposed to be a working Pentax ES - one of two fully automatic exposure SLRs released by Pentax before the K-mount bodies were on the market. It's a shame that the ES and ESII are flawed creatures, probably doomed by the electronics that made them quite the advancement for Pentax.
I've also been encouraged by reactions from people that learned I was writing a book. My hope is that it will be useful to a newcomer to film photography as well an old hand that likes 35mm cameras. Millions of Spotmatics were sold during 1964-1973, and they remain a good bargain for anyone wanting a simple, easy-to-operate 35mm SLR.
I wish you all the best for 2025.
