Honeywell Pentax H3

[truls]

I am not really a Pentaxian, but they are really lovely cameras. The history is on wikipedia and other sites, I believe this camera came before the more well known Spotmatic series. There is no light meter, no big deal. The camera is not very big, and fits perfect in my hands. The controls are softer than most other cameras, shutter very quiet and with minimal mirror slap. Some pictures of the camera, it looks it did not have seen much use. I no longer have Takumars, so, the Fujinon lens have to do for now (it is a great lens anyway):

[philbirch]

Lovely camera. They advertised the Pentax 'feel' back in the day.

[Randy]

The Asahi's were different than the Honeywells.

[Stephen]

Any specific differences? I thought the Honeywell tag was merely an importers name added to the camera? There might be minor other cosmetic changes or features altered, due to the large numbers involved in the US market, but Pentax in particular were consistent across the world with each model, one of the major selling points in the UK.

The main variant of any make was the home Japanese market, often models were trialed before export, and final delivery was different to the home versions.

Stephen

[truls]

The Asahi/Pentax story is interesting. I have heard the first Pentax cameras were sold as Tower - Sears label, the Asahiflex. I cannot figure out if S/H-series camera from 57 had any difference in specifications or design, Asahi/Honeywell. I also have heard some cameras with fasters shutter 1/500 had a hidden 1/1000 by turning the wheel to an unnumbered part of the scale.

[philbirch]

The Honeywells were a little different in only one sense: The Spotmatic II series, IIa was only imported in the US and had a forward facing sensor linked to the Honeywell flash available ony in the US.

Mine is a SP1000, they brought out a cheaper SP500 with maximum speed of 1/500th on the dial. It was possible to go one stop further and achieve a faster speed.

Many years ago when I was in the trade I queried this with the importer he confirmed that it was a faster speed but that it was not necessarily 1/1000th as it hadn't been 'calibrated' at 1/1000th. This was BS as we'd all (at work) tried one and the speeds were dead right.

There is a difference between the Spotmatic1000 and the SP1000 to do with open aperture metering. In addition there were differences in model and name markings between the Honeywells and the Asahis, but they were identical in every respect.
My SP1000 and at the back showing the Asahi name... (sorry about the cam shake!)