This camera arrived four years late and was missing the feature it was literally named after… yet it sold in the millions

When the prototype Pentax Spotmatic was first shown at the 1960 Photokina trade fair in Germany, it was the first SLR to promise both through-the-lens (TTL) metering and the first with spot metering. 

But by the time the Spotmatic reached the market, almost half a decade later in 1964, the Topcon RE-Super had beat it to the market with TTL metering by a year – and despite its name, the spot metering was missing!

So the Pentax Spotmatic was first with absolutely nothing, yet was one of the most wildly successful cameras ever made. But why?

The Topcon RE-Super was the first SLR to offer TTL metering and did it at full aperture. The Spotmatic offered stop-down metering. The photographer would focus with the lens wide open, then push up a switch (labelled SW) on the left side of the mirror box to close the lens diaphragm to its shooting aperture. 

You would then move the shutter speed dial or the aperture ring to center a needle in the viewfinder. This was nowhere near as convenient as the full aperture metering of the Topcon, especially in low light, but the switch was easy to use and it worked.

The Spotmatic quickly earned a great reputation for reliability (my own Spotmatic still works perfectly, over 50 years later) and featured a rapid wind lever, a self-timer and shutter speeds of up to to 1/1000sec, with great ergonomics. 

It was smaller, lighter, retailed at a substantially better price ($249 compared to $369 for the Topcon, both with 50mm f/1.8 lenses) and was much more widely available. Between 1964 and 1976, some 4 million bodies were made.

Curiously, camera historians seem to disagree on why the Spotmatic's planned spot metering never made it into the final camera despite its name implying that it should have this exposure metering mode. 

Some say the engineers found it too difficult to implement by the time the camera was to go into production. Others say that management felt it would be too difficult for their customers to use. 

Whatever the reason, despite the Spotmatic name being used in a series of later models, Pentax never did make an SLR with spot metering!

Find out more about photography's past in David Young's book, A Brief History of Photography.

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