Why the world’s simplest SLR camera became its greatest (and is still in demand 50 years later)

The legend of the Pentax K1000 is rooted in it’s simplicity, reliability and affordability. Introduced in 1976, just a year after Pentax replaced their Spotmatic series of M42 screw mount cameras with the new K bayonet models, the K1000 was aimed at students.

It was a stripped-down model of the upscale KM and K2 models, lacking a self-timer and a depth-of-field preview button. But it had the basics.... a mechanically governed shutter with speeds to 1/1000sec down to a full second, a bright, clear pentaprism viewfinder and good TTL metering (which like the Spotmatics, was an averaging meter). And all powered by a single SR44 battery meaning if the battery fails, you can still use the camera. Even better, unlike the Spotmatic series which used mercury button cells, the Silver Oxide SR44s are still readily available. 

It all came in a sturdy, reliable, inexpensive, all-metal body and thus became extremely popular with amateurs and students alike.  It’s original price was just $299 with a 55mm f/2 lens.

The 50mm and 55mm f/2 lenses have stories in themselves. The 55mm lens was made for the K1000 as at 55mm the rear element easily clears the mirror. (Many early SLRs used 55mm and 58mm lenses as standard lenses for this reason.) 50mm lenses require fancier (read “more expensive”) designs to clear the mirror when it flips up.  And the fancier the design, the larger the percentage of lenses that won’t quite “cut the mustard” when going through Quality Control.  

Pentax found that when their 50mm f/1.8 lenses failed they nearly always failed only when wide open.  When stopped down to f/2, they would pass easily.  Rather than throw them out, they simply put larger trim rings on them, reducing the aperture and sold them as 50mm f/2 lenses at a lower price!  Very smart, indeed!

Over the years, K1000 production was moved from Japan to Hong Kong (1978) and later to China itself (1990), to reduce labor costs and with some minor materials changes to keep it affordable. It remained in production for 21 years, until 1997, with over 3 million cameras sold. 

Production only stopped when it was no longer possible to purchase the meter coil movements at anywhere near a reasonable price. Were they still available today, the K1000 may likely still be available, too!

The K1000 was replaced in 1998 with the with ZX-M (sold as the MZ-M in some markets). Though missing some features of the other ZX series cameras, but still with a much richer feature set than the very basic K1000, the plastic bodied ZX-M failed to find a market with students. Even today, many students prefer a second, third or even fourth-hand K1000 to learn with.  And that, my friends, is the stuff that legends are made of.

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

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Take a look at the best film cameras you can buy today, and the best cameras for sports photography. You can also read other articles in David Young's Classic Cameras series.