Pentax LX
Encyclopedia
135 film
The term 135 was introduced by Kodak in 1934 as a designation for cartridge film wide, specifically for still photography. It quickly grew in popularity, surpassing 120 film by the late 1960s to become the most popular photographic film format...
Single-lens reflex camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
produced by Pentax
Pentax
Pentax is a brand name used by Hoya Corporation for its medical-related products & services and Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company for cameras, sport optics , etc. Hoya purchased and merged with the Japanese optics company on March 31, 2008. Hoya's Pentax imaging business was sold to Ricoh Company, Ltd...
in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
between 1980 and 2001. The lens mount
Lens mount
A lens mount is an interface — mechanical and often also electrical — between a photographic camera body and a lens. It is confined to cameras where the body allows interchangeable lenses, most usually the single lens reflex type or any movie camera of 16 mm or higher gauge...
is the Pentax K mount
Pentax K mount
The Pentax K mount, sometimes referred to as the "PK mount", is a lens mount standard for mounting interchangeable photographic lenses to 35 mm single-lens reflex cameras. It was created by Pentax in 1975, and has been used by all Pentax 35 mm and digital SLRs since...
, allowing the use of almost all Pentax 35 mm format lenses, those made before 1975 using a screw-mount adapter with limited automatic functionality. It is the top-of-the-line "professional" camera in the Pentax manual focus range. Compared to contemporary professional bodies from most rival manufacturers, like the Canon F-1
Canon F-1
The Canon F-1 is a 35 mm single-lens reflex camera produced by Canon of Japan from March 1971 until 1976's introduction of the mildly updated F-1n, while in 1981 a New F-1 was launched. The new Canon FD lens mount was introduced along with the F-1, but the previous Canon FL-mount lenses were...
or Nikon F3
Nikon F3
The Nikon F3 was Nikon's third professional single-lens reflex camera body, preceded by the F and F2. Introduced in 1980, it had manual and semi-automatic exposure control whereby the camera would select the correct shutter speed . The Nikon F3 series cameras had the most model variations of any...
, the LX body is much smaller and lighter. The Olympus's OM-2
Olympus OM-2
The Olympus OM-2 was a single-lens reflex system camera produced by Olympus of Japan.-Main Features:The Olympus OM-2 was an aperture priority automatic camera , based on the earlier, successful Olympus OM-1 body...
, however, is lighter still (must be remarked that OM-2 had fixed viewfinder, while Canon, Nikon and Pentax ones were interchangeable).
As expected of a professional camera at the time, the LX provides mechanical shutter speeds, ranging from the X-syncspeed of 1/75 second to 1/2000 second and B, permitting manual operation without battery power, while the slow speeds from 1/60 second to 4 seconds, as well as the exposure meter, is battery dependent. Construction is strong and durable, with a solid cast metal frame and metal covering plates. All buttons and dials are weather and dust sealed, a unique feature not found on other professional cameras of the day. Underneath the satin black finish is black chrome, so that even as the surface finish inevitably wore through in hard professional use, the underlying metal would not look brassy. Both the viewfinder
Viewfinder
In photography, a viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose, and in many cases to focus, the picture. Most viewfinders are separate, and suffer parallax, while the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main optical system. Viewfinders are used in many cameras of...
and the focusing screen
Focusing screen
A focusing screen is a flat translucent material, usually ground glass, found in a system camera that allows the user of the camera to preview the framed image in a viewfinder. Often, focusing screens are available in variants with different etched markings for various purposes...
are interchangeable to suit the task at hand, a large choice of alternatives were available. The camera has a somewhat uncommon frame counter, being able to keep track of the frame number in either direction, whether advancing or rewinding the film; this feature dramatically adds to the flexibility of the camera. The camera supports mirror lockup, multiple exposures, and depth of field
Depth of field
In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image...
preview. Both a winder
Winder
Winder may refer to:* winder , a device for transferring energy into a mechanical storage such as mainsprings or the weights of a longcase clock. Its supply may be the hand—most familiarly so—or an electric motor....
and motor drive
Motor drive
A motor drive, in the field of photography, is a powered film transport mechanism. Historically, film loading, advancing, and rewinding were all manually driven functions...
were available, and a full complement of other professional accessories.
The LX has excellent low-light performance using dynamic, off-the-film-plane TTL
Through-the-lens
Through-the-lens metering is a photographic term describing a feature of cameras capable of measuring light levels in a scene through their taking lenses, as opposed to a separate metering window...
metering. Pre-release exposure information is obtained from light reflected from a patterned shutter curtain back to the sensor. This exposure metering makes the camera excellent for available light photography. TTL flash control is also available using Pentax dedicated units. Exposure control is by manual or aperture priority
Aperture priority
Aperture priority, often abbreviated A or Av on a camera mode dial, is a setting on some cameras that allows the user to choose a specific aperture value while the camera selects a shutter speed to match. The camera will ensure proper exposure...
automatic. Automatic exposure time is up to 125 seconds.
In October 1981, Pentax made available 300 limited edition Pentax LX Gold cameras to celebrate having produced 10 million SLR cameras, the first camera manufacturer to reach that milestone according to the accompanying certificate. The camera and its SMC 1:1.2 50mm lens is partly gold plated and partly covered in brown reptile skin, while some details are made of brown plastic, and it came with a brown ever-ready case. Cameras for some markets such as the USA have brown leather instead of reptile skin supposedly due to import laws. The actual number of cameras made is somewhat higher than 300 since a few where retained at Pentax reserved for their own use. The actual number for sale however was 300 cameras according to Pentax in Tokyo. It is a superb example of Japanese camera workmanship.
Three limited editions of the Pentax LX were subsequently distributed on the Japanese market according to the Asahi Optical Historical Club:
The Pentax LX titanium was produced in 1994 to mark the company's 75th anniversary. The titanium plated limited edition of apparently only 1000 LX cameras for the Japanese market came in a presentation box.
The Pentax LX Titanium was launched in 1996 finished in black in a limited number of 300.
The Pentax LX 2000 with a SMC Pentax-A f/1.2 50mm lens in bright metal finish marked the new millennium in the year 2000.
External links
- Dimitrov, Bojidar (2002). LX (early version). Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Equipment Page, retrieved 1-Feb-2011.
- Dimitrov, Bojidar (2002). LX (late version). Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Equipment Page, retrieved 1-Feb-2011.
- Pentax LX Factory service. http://www.pentaximaging.com/customer_care/pentax_service/product_repairs/index.jsp
- The Asahi Optical Historical Club.
http://www.aohc.it/