The Pentax Spotmatic is another one of those cameras that everyone can agree is a true classic. The original model was introduced in 1964 which was followed by many later models up into the 70's. This particular version is the MD model, which introduced a provision for a motor drive. The Spotmatic was the first Pentax camera to introduce TTL metering, although it is a stop-down meter rather than full aperture metering that would come in later models. It's a large, solid camera that can take a beating and keep going.
A great thing about these older SLR's is their large and bright viewfinders, helped of course by the large-aperture standard lens which are much brighter than the slower 3.5-5.6 kit zooms we see today. Thanks to these factors focusing manually is much easier than on modern cameras that are optimized for autofocus. The lens is actually quite good, but these were pictures are from a lousy wal-mart CD, all other film pictures on this site were scanned using my own, much better film scanner.
The Spotmatic has TTL center-weighted metering, however the meter only works if the aperture is stopped-down. To use the light meter you press a button near the lens-mount which stops the lens down to the chosen aperture. You can then adjust the shutterspeed and the aperture to center the meter needle between the +/- signs in the viewfinder before taking the picture, a somewhat slower process but still quite workable, although I have discovered that my meter is no longer accurate.
Sometimes it's nice to take out an older film camera, especially one as solid as the spotmatic.
Photos taken at the University of Oklahoma Duck Pond. All of these pictures were shot on Kodak T400CN
