Asahi Pentax camera company
When recording Episode 38, we ended the discussion at the end of the M42 era and picked up with the K-mounts in Episode 40. Although you never heard us touch upon the K-mounts in Episode 38, we actually did start talking about them, but decided to scrap that part as…
We’re starting off the new year with a continuation of the Pentax discussion we started in Episode 38. Pentax Part Deux picks up with the K-Mount SLRs produced by Asahi in the 1970s and we go through the auto focus cameras, covering Pentax point and shoots, and even the Pentax…
When it comes to camera brands that we hear listeners of this show want to hear about, Pentax seems to come up more often than any other brand. As the world’s number one open source film photography podcast, the guys and I are never ones to deprive the world of…
This is a Pentax LX, a 35mm SLR produced by Asahi Optical of Japan between the years 1980 and 2001. The Pentax LX was the top of the line Pentax SLR aimed at professional photographers and competed directly with the Nikon F3. The camera had a long list of features,…
This is an Asahiflex IIa, a 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera, produced by Asahi Optical Company from February 1955 to April 1957. The model IIa was an upgrade to the original Asahiflex from 1952 featuring a front mounted slow speed dial with speeds down to 1/2 second, and an instant…
When the company known today as Pentax released their first camera in 1952, they were then known as Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō K.K., or Asahi Optical Company in English. At the time, Asahi Optical was a lens maker, producing photographic lenses for a variety of other Japanese companies. That first camera…
This is the Asahi Pentax, the very first 35mm SLR produced by the Asahi Optical Company of Japan to use a pentaprism viewfinder. The camera is often referred to as the Pentax AP by collectors even though that was never officially documented. The other camera is the Asahi Pentax K,…
Film is back! Well, sorta. OK, film never went anywhere, but like vinyl records did in the early 21st century, the steady decrease of film usage seems to have bottomed out and has started to increase again. According to Ilford in an article published in February 2015, 30% of people…
What is it? This is a Pentax PC35AF, a 35mm compact camera made by the Asahi Optical Co. in Tokyo Japan between the years of 1982 and 1984. It was the first compact Pentax camera capable of auto focus and was the first in a long running PC-series of cameras…
This is a Pentax ES II Single Lens Reflex camera made in Japan by Asahi Pentax. It is one of the very few M42 screw mount cameras that is capable of auto exposure, and was the very last screw mount camera made by Asahi Pentax before they switched to K-Mount…
This is a Pentax Sv 35mm SLR film camera made by the Asahi Optical Company, based in Tokyo, Japan. The significant feature of the Sv is it’s inclusion of a self-timer which was not available on earlier models. It was one the last models of the Pentax S-series and was…
