It was with mild interest as I mused back upon my photographic past to realize that prior to my "digital hiatus" beginning in 2001, the camera maker from which I had shot the most different models of film cameras was in fact... PENTAX!
Among my earlier film camera experiences was shooting staff K-1000 cameras as a photographer at my college yearbook in 1991. Later, when I became the editor of this yearbook, and enabled with some funds to replace the "K-Grands," I selected the P-30T model for offering an affordable choice with auto-exposure. Years later, when I was a Bus Operator, I snapped up an IQ-Zoom 80 QD to carry with me as a means to occasionally document (on slide film!) the buses, routes, and settings I had the privilege of driving.
When I got back into film shooting however, Pentax had been conspicuously absent my "wants list." In each of my earlier examples of using a Pentax, the camera model was selected more for a pragmatic aspect of cost benefit in a pricey camera market than it was selected for the shooting experience. The K-1000 simply was there already, and I didn't recall liking it much. The P-30T performed fine, but always felt a bit cheap. The IQ-Zoom was actually rather likable, and produced some decent results in favorable conditions, but seemed easily thrown by any varied lighting situation. Simply put, despite my interest in photography and sentimental ways, I was at a loss to conjure up nostalgia for shooting a Pentax.
You would at least think that given my exposure (pun intended) to the brand throughout the 1990's, I would at least be pretty well versed in "Pentaxonomy" but even this fails to ring true. Despite being a Popular Photography subscriber for most of the 1990's, I paid little in the way of attention to the Pentax brand, though much of this is due to the maker rarely getting much in the way of prominent attention at the time. While Canon, Nikon, and Minolta stole the show with their many new releases, Pentax's line-up generally sat humbly in the backdrop. There were some occasional feature stories on some of their more innovative releases, but most of the buzz tended to focus on the industry's "Big Three."
Or at least that's how I remembered it. But then as I was digging through some online copies of Popular Photography from 1999, I spotted an advertisement that suddenly spurred a memory for me:
Suddenly, I could remember being the twenty-something "Quirky Geeky Guy with a Camera Magazine" seeing this very ad back when it first was featured. I was totally enchanted by the idea of the light up dial featured on the ZX-7 at the time, but had not long beforehand picked up a Canon EOS Elan II-e, so this Pentax and its novel arrangement showed up just a hair too late for me to consider at the time.
But... here I was remembering this in a new era where the film cameras that cost several hundred dollars a decade and change ago could now be had for barely more than lunch money. I stole off to ebay, found a nice looking ZX-7 for under $20 and pulled the trigger with little hesitation.
Admittedly, I was making a buying choice based on little more than a novelty feature, but it wasn't a huge investment. Looking through what I could discover in documentation seemed to support that this Pentax could provide a new and welcome shooting experience for a person like myself who had been largely used to a much more manual experience. I certainly looked forward to giving it a try.
The Pentax arrived safely, and I wasted little time putting in a pair of CR2 batteries to fire it up and see what it could do. I generally liked the light weight and comfortable feel of the ZX-7 in my hands, and was generally pleased to see an informative but somewhat dim viewfinder to accompany the camera. I was also quite pleased to discover just how interchangeable Pentax lenses are. Unlike Minolta and Canon AF SLR's, the Pentax AF products readily take their legacy manual focus lenses. And while many of my Nikons feature a similar backwards compatibility, it can be very model-specific, requiring a lot of double checking via online lens-compatibility charts.
And Yes, the main control dial DOES light up in full color as shown in the magazine ad. It does so when mounted to a Pentax AF lens locked into the program mode when the control dial is set to one of the scene modes on the top of the dial. It even does a neat scroll through the colors on the dial when started up, which you can see below:
Among my earlier film camera experiences was shooting staff K-1000 cameras as a photographer at my college yearbook in 1991. Later, when I became the editor of this yearbook, and enabled with some funds to replace the "K-Grands," I selected the P-30T model for offering an affordable choice with auto-exposure. Years later, when I was a Bus Operator, I snapped up an IQ-Zoom 80 QD to carry with me as a means to occasionally document (on slide film!) the buses, routes, and settings I had the privilege of driving.
When I got back into film shooting however, Pentax had been conspicuously absent my "wants list." In each of my earlier examples of using a Pentax, the camera model was selected more for a pragmatic aspect of cost benefit in a pricey camera market than it was selected for the shooting experience. The K-1000 simply was there already, and I didn't recall liking it much. The P-30T performed fine, but always felt a bit cheap. The IQ-Zoom was actually rather likable, and produced some decent results in favorable conditions, but seemed easily thrown by any varied lighting situation. Simply put, despite my interest in photography and sentimental ways, I was at a loss to conjure up nostalgia for shooting a Pentax.
You would at least think that given my exposure (pun intended) to the brand throughout the 1990's, I would at least be pretty well versed in "Pentaxonomy" but even this fails to ring true. Despite being a Popular Photography subscriber for most of the 1990's, I paid little in the way of attention to the Pentax brand, though much of this is due to the maker rarely getting much in the way of prominent attention at the time. While Canon, Nikon, and Minolta stole the show with their many new releases, Pentax's line-up generally sat humbly in the backdrop. There were some occasional feature stories on some of their more innovative releases, but most of the buzz tended to focus on the industry's "Big Three."
Or at least that's how I remembered it. But then as I was digging through some online copies of Popular Photography from 1999, I spotted an advertisement that suddenly spurred a memory for me:
Suddenly, I could remember being the twenty-something "Quirky Geeky Guy with a Camera Magazine" seeing this very ad back when it first was featured. I was totally enchanted by the idea of the light up dial featured on the ZX-7 at the time, but had not long beforehand picked up a Canon EOS Elan II-e, so this Pentax and its novel arrangement showed up just a hair too late for me to consider at the time.
But... here I was remembering this in a new era where the film cameras that cost several hundred dollars a decade and change ago could now be had for barely more than lunch money. I stole off to ebay, found a nice looking ZX-7 for under $20 and pulled the trigger with little hesitation.
The Pentax ZX-7 has a fairly basic look that is hardly intimidating to the amateur photographer.
Admittedly, I was making a buying choice based on little more than a novelty feature, but it wasn't a huge investment. Looking through what I could discover in documentation seemed to support that this Pentax could provide a new and welcome shooting experience for a person like myself who had been largely used to a much more manual experience. I certainly looked forward to giving it a try.
The Pentax arrived safely, and I wasted little time putting in a pair of CR2 batteries to fire it up and see what it could do. I generally liked the light weight and comfortable feel of the ZX-7 in my hands, and was generally pleased to see an informative but somewhat dim viewfinder to accompany the camera. I was also quite pleased to discover just how interchangeable Pentax lenses are. Unlike Minolta and Canon AF SLR's, the Pentax AF products readily take their legacy manual focus lenses. And while many of my Nikons feature a similar backwards compatibility, it can be very model-specific, requiring a lot of double checking via online lens-compatibility charts.
One great feature of the Pentax line is the readily availability to use manual focus Pentax lenses on any autofocus body. This privilege works in reverse as well.
The top view of the Pentax ZX-7 relies on a minimal amount of dials and buttons to control features. The main dial is actually the collar around the shutter release, unlike many models with a separate dial on top or back. This arrangement actually works pretty well.
And Yes, the main control dial DOES light up in full color as shown in the magazine ad. It does so when mounted to a Pentax AF lens locked into the program mode when the control dial is set to one of the scene modes on the top of the dial. It even does a neat scroll through the colors on the dial when started up, which you can see below:
