Pentax Electro Spotmatic

[belgiumreporter]

Finally found a pentax electro spotmatic, the first production camera with an electronic shutter. The electro spotmatic was launched in 1971 and was only available on the japanese market in '72 it was replaced with the ES version wich was then launched world wide, 2years later the ES became replaced by the ESII. So now i've got all three versions (four if you count the chrome ESII) and this part of the collection is finally complete :-) I've got a special bond with this camera , when i as a young man went to our local foto dealer to buy my first Nikon F he showed me the ES and i was blown away with the it's specs wich where in '72 quite sensational. Still i had my mind set on the F and the F it was. To cut on the hefty price tag i settled for the plain prism one and an vivitar 35mm 1:1.9 light was measured with the sixtar (once again no money for the lunasix) If i remember correctly the ES was also more expensive than the F. Still got the F and the brochure in wich the F, the "new" F2 and the ES were featured. 

[barbarian]

Interesting. I went over to Nikon just before they released the ES, so I never got one. Probably should have one in the collection.

[paulhofseth]

One interesting bit of asahi history is that the M42 mount was introduced by the Zeiss Dresden factory for the first Contax SLR and apparently was licenced by the japanese (if such a thing as a copyright on a simple thread can exist)

p.

[belgiumreporter]

Mar 17, 2020 15:48:44 GMT -5 paulhofseth said:

One interesting bit of asahi history is that the M42 mount was introduced by the Zeiss Dresden factory for the first Contax SLR and apparently was licenced by the japanese (if such a thing as a copyright on a simple thread can exist)

p.

Indeed, just checked to be sure