Pentax MX preview

I recently wrote about how enamoured I was

with my new Pentax ME Super camera[1]. I

also hinted that my plans to limit and

rationalise my camera collection were not

proceeding according to, well, plan.

As much as I love the ME Super (and I really

do!), my extensive reading about Pentax's M

series had made it clear that in the mind of

most enthusiasts, the ME Super is not the

crown of the M line up. Popular consensus

undeniably awards that title to the MX. The

MX has the same diminutive form factor as all

the M cameras (it is a tiny bit larger and

heavier than the ME or ME Super, but not by

enough to get worked up about), but it has a

fully mechanical shutter which works without

batteries at all speeds, and nothing but a

fully manual exposure mode. I suppose it is

analogous to the Olympus OM-1 which started

the compact SLR craze in the first place.

The MX seems to have a bit of a cult-like

following. Many people have called it their

absolute favourite 35mm SLR of all time.

There are plenty of forum threads asking

questions like "if you could only keep your

MX or your ME (or ME Super), which would it

be?" and without fail everybody chooses the

MX.

Unsurprisingly, the MX, while cheap as far as

cult classic mechanical cameras can go, is

notably more expensive than the rest of the M

series. Being very happy with the ME Super,

I put the MX firmly in my mental category of

"Well, it's nice, and if I ever come upon the

chance to own one at a decent price I'll jump

on it, but I have no pressing need for it and

shouldn't be actively seeking one out". This

is exactly the same category that Canon's A-1

and EF models lived in while I was shooting

my AE-1. It stayed in that category for

about three years, and I fully expected the

MX to do about the same.

Then one fateful night I stumbled across an

eBay listing for an MX body from Germany,

allegedly working, for 40 EUR, far less than

they usually cost and even less than you'd

likely pay for a good condition,

known working ME Super from a real store. I

was immediately torn between thinking I

couldn't pass the opportunity up and

realising that I had no need for it and,

indeed, that it would mess up my neat little

system by essentially duplicating the role

that my Spotmatic was supposed to play. I

initially resisted buying it. I refreshed

the listing an hour or two later, fully

expecting this bargain to have already been

snapped up. To my surprise it wasn't, and I

caved, and it's been sitting on my coffee

table for about two weeks now.

I haven't put a roll of film through it yet,

so this is very much a "preview" and not a

"review". I've promised myself that I'll

eventually keep only one of the MX and the

Super ME. It's not a light decision so I

will hold off until I have put at least one

roll through the MX to form my final

impressions. I'm only bothering to write

about it now because I had such a strong

initial reaction to it and want to put my

thoughts in order - and also because famous

film blogger Hamish Gill of 35mmc.com has

just recently started a series of posts[2]

about the MX and a perverse part of me wants

to beat him to the punch on Gopher! So,

let's get to it.

I have to say, after all of the online hype

surrounding the MX, I unboxed it with great

anticipation. After a few minutes of

playing, though, my overwhelming first

response was:

"Oh. This is what all the fuss is about?"

This is not, let me be clear, to say that the

MX is a bad camera. Not at all. But it's

not without shortcomings, and they are not,

for me, easy shortcomings to overlook. I

certainly don't think it's the case that the

MX beats the ME Super hands down. I think

it's far less clear cut than that.

But before digging into shortcomings, let me

say right off the bat that if the choice

between the two came down to a beauty contest

there'd be no real contest. The MX is the

better looking camera, no question. I wrote

about how I didn't really like the shutter

speed adjusting buttons on the ME Super: they

have a plasticy 80s vibe that detracts from

the camera's otherwise classic styling. As

you'd expect from a totally manual camera, in

their place the MX has a traditional shutter

speed knob, anodised black with nicely

knurled sides. The shutter speed lettering

is ever so slightly recessed, with colouring

that almost exactly matches the colouring

on the Spotmatic. Being fully manual, the MX

has no equivalent of the ME Super's exposure

compensation knob around the film rewind

lever housing, giving the left half of the

top plate a much cleaner appearance.

In terms of ergonomics and user interface,

things aren't so beautiful, though. The

first thing that struck me was the throw on

the film advance lever. It's long. Very

long. In fact, the second or third time I

tried to trip the MX's shutter, nothing

happened and I thought "Oh, no, this cheap

eBay camera isn't working after all!". It

turned out I just hadn't advanced the lever

enough to fully cock the shutter! Paying

more careful attention to winding after this,

I noticed that not only did the lever have a

really long throw, but about three quarters

of the way through the feeling of it changes

• it becomes softer, like part of the

mechanism has disengaged. I actually

thought that perhaps something was faulty

inside and it was supposed to finish its

stroke at that point, but checking the

manual, the image in there makes it clear

that the lever really is supposed to go that

far around in. The manual states that it has

a 162 degree throw with a 20 degree standoff

(and more on that later), for a total of

just over 180 degrees! The Spotmatic's

manual gives figures of 160 degrees and 10

degrees respectively, so the MX has actually

only a slightly longer throw. But

subjectively it feels a lot longer to me:

possible this can be attributed to the

difference in body size? 182 degrees on a

tiny body may feel more than 170 on a larger

body. Regardless, the MX's throw is much

longer and much less nice feeling than the

similarly sized ME Super's lever (135 degree

throw with 30 degree standoff), which is not

what I was expecting. Ultimately, though,

this is a matter of taste of just getting

used to something.

My second nasty surprise was worse. The ME

Super has a wonderful light meter interface:

slightly depress the shutter release to

activate the meter, and then it stays active

for 30 seconds after you remove your finger

from the button (or until you take a shot!).

This frees your finger to adjust the shutter

speed while being able to immediately see the

effect on the meter, or to adjust the

aperture with your other hand without

having to be careful not to accidentally

completely depress the release and take a

shot. The MX doesn't work this way at all:

partially pressing the shutter activates the

meter, but only for as long as you keep your

finger there. This was a disappointment, but

it rapidly got worse. It turns out that to

keep the MX's meter on after removing your

finger from the shutter release, you need to

pull the advance lever slightly away from the

body, to its 20 degree standoff position.

Argh! I hate this interface design! When

I first got into photography I used a Ricoh

KR-10 for a little while, where you had to

pull the advance lever out just a little to

unlock the shutter. I came to really detest

that aspect of its design. It makes it

impossible to take a vertically-oriented shot

without having the protruding lever poking

you in either the eye or the face, depending

on how you hold the camera. I've read a very

large number of online reviews of the MX by

now and literally not one of them have ever

mentioned this aspect of it, in negative or

positive tones. I'm really shocked that

people seem so totally indifferent to it.

For me it's an immediate strike against the

MX. I just can't ever really love a camera

that makes you do this. Once I've wound on,

that lever should be immediately and

completely pushed back flat against the body

and stay there until I've taken a shot.

My third and final serious gripe against the

MX's interface is one that a lot of people

• have* commented about online. That

beautifully labelled and knurled shutter knob

is difficult to turn. In part this is from

it being stiffer than average, but it's also

partially due to its smaller than average

size and the general crowdedness of the right

hand of the top plate. In fact, the decision

to have the film advance lever do double duty

as a light meter switch makes some sense in

the context of the MX (unlike my old Richoh),

because it's just about impossible to change

shutter speeds with the lever pushed fully in

against the camera body. The knob is so

stiff that turning it in a controlled fashion

has to be done with a thumb and index finger

pinching opposite sides of the knob. Trying

to use only the index finger on the side of

the front of the knob requires you to use so

much force that it's very difficult to

reliably move just one stop in either

direction. I often end up jerking the knob

through two or three stops at once when I try

to do it this way. Pinching two opposing

sides of the knob makes precise control

straightforward, but your thumb is very

likely to push the advance lever out to the

metering position. The cramped layout of

this part of the camera seems to make this

unavoidable.

I wonder if this provides some insight into

the design decisions behind the OM-1. One of

the reasons I've never seriously considered

getting into the OM series is that, aside

from the usual problem of them being designed

for mercury batteries, they have an unusual

interface that I never understood the point

of. What looks, at first glance, like a

shutter speed knob on the top plate is in

fact a film speed knob for the light meter.

Shutter speed is adjusted with a ring just

forward of the lens mount, in much the same

way that aperture is adjusted in a "standard"

interface. To make this work, lenses

designed for use with the OM series have

their aperture control rings at the front

of the lens. This always seemed to me to be

super weird. Nothing one couldn't get used

to, but why bother doing things so unusually?

Now I really wonder whether Olympus came to

the conclusion that on a very compact SLR

body a shutter speed knob in the conventional

location just couldn't be made to work

comfortably, and so decided to rethink

things, while Pentax just forged on ahead

with uninspiring results. That would be an

extremely interesting thing to know! If it

were true, it still wouldn't answer why on

Earth Nikon used a similar interface with

their Nikkormat cameras...

This also casts new light on those ugly, 80s

push buttons used for shutter speed control

on the ME Super. A lot of people love to

hate these things, and I have seen people

allege that they are a "tacked on", rather

than carefully thought out, solution. I have

to wonder if they are in fact actually a

very deliberate decision made as a direct

result of experience with the MX (released

three years earlier). They might be kind of

ugly, and perhaps they are more prone to

failure long term, but at the end of the day,

after setting the aperture I can shoot the

ME Super in manual mode one-handed using

those buttons. Doing that on the MX is

inconceivable. It really seems like the

buttons are a better design when the

constraints of a very small camera body come

in to play. Many people complain that they

can't see what speed the ME Super is set to

without looking through the view finder,

because of the lack of a traditional knob. I

am kind of baffled by this, as you have to

look through the view finder to compose your

shot or take a meter reading anyway.

So, as beautiful, capable and well-built as

the MX is, the long, sloppy feeling lever

throw, the inconvenient meter operation and

the difficulty of adjusting shutter speed

mean that I can't really consider it a joy to

use, which is a surprise and a

disappointment. Obviously a lot of people

can look past these things. More power to

them, but I think they are a real shame.

Speaking of the MX being "well-built": it is,

and a lot of people online when comparing the

MX to the ME or ME Super will opine that the

MX is better built than the other M series

cameras. Based on my limited experience of

the two, I can see no evidence for this

whatsoever. While they obviously don't share

exactly the same body (the MX is slightly

shorter than the ME Super, but also slightly

longer and wider), I strongly suspect that

many parts are completely interchangable

between them. The corresponding body parts

of different shapes/sizes between the two

seem to be made of exactly the same materials

and via the same manufacturing processes. I

think the MX cultists are really exaggerating

the difference here.

So far, beyond complimenting the MX's good

looks and build quality, I've not done much

more than complain about its shortcomings;

But there are things to like here, too. For

starters, the MX has a much nicer, machined

metal shutter release than the ME Super with

(yes!) a proper shutter lock, which beats the

living daylights out of the stupid, fiddly

lock on the ME Super. The MX also has a DoF

preview feature, which the ME Super lacks.

In a very clever move, rather than adding

another dedicated control for this, the MX's

DoF preview is activated by pushing the self

timer lever in the opposite direction that

you'd turn it to wind the self timer. This

works really nicely, it's easy to do with the

camera held to your eye (much easier than

operating the combined DoF preview and meter

activation switch on the Spotmatic), and the

double duty of this lever does not interfere

in any way with using it for either purpose.

Finally, the MX has a small transparent

window in the pentaprism housing which lets

you see the aperture markings on your lens so

you can tell the current setting. To be

clear, it's not a little plastic wheel with

apertures printed on it which rotates in

synch with the actual aperture adjustment

ring: you are directly seeing the actual

aperture adjustment ring. Obviously this

only works when it's light out, but that's

most of the time for most people. These are

all genuinely great features - a hypothetical

"dream M camera" which was basically an ME

Super (with its beautiful advance lever and

wider range of shutter speeds) but with these

things added would be absolutely amazing.

I'm not at all sure how you could get the ME

Super's auto/manual/mechanical/bulb mode

selection to work if you replaced its shutter

with one more like the MX's, but it seems

like the aperture setting window and the DoF

preview function would both be

straightforward to transfer between the two

similar bodies. If the body had to be

enlarged to the every so slightly larger

dimensions of the MX I think that would be a

perfectly fair price to pay.

Ultimately, I think there's a very plausible

case to be made for the ME Super being the

better camera. I think perhaps a lot of the

MX diehards must belong to that breed of

photographer who places an inordinate value

on fully mechanical operation at all shutter

speeds without batteries. It's not that I

don't see any appeal in this at all, I

totally get it. But at the end of the day I

can only consider it a small bonus, and not

enough to offset major usability concerns.

The ME Super takes very easy to find, small,

light, cheap batteries - easier to find,

smaller, lighter and cheaper than a spare

roll of film, so only extremely poor planning

is an excuse for battery dependence causing a

disaster on the hypothetical remote

wilderness scenario that people like to

obsess about. True, if the electronics fail

in an ME Super repair may be impossible due

to lack of replacement parts, while a

mechanical failure in an MX can in theory

always be fixed because new parts can be

machined. In practice, getting a serious

mechanical failure in an MX repaired is

guaranteed to cost enough money to buy

several replacement ME Supers.

Gun to my head, if I had to choose between

the two today, I'd keep the ME Super. Maybe

this will change after actually putting a

roll through the MX, but I wouldn't bet on

it. My expectation is that if the light

seals prove to be in working order I'll

resell the MX for more than I paid for it and

stick with my previously planned Spotmatic/ME

Super duo. It would make good logical sense

to replace the Spotmatic with something from

the K series, so that my big, heavy, slow,

manual camera and my small, light, fast,

semiautomatic camera could at least share

lenses. I just like the Spotmatic too gosh

darned much, though. That said, I do still

sometimes ponder replacing it with something

even older and simpler, like a Pentax SV.

What? Be content with what I have???

[1] gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/~solderpunk/phlog/pentax-me-super-review.txt

[2] https://www.35mmc.com/21/10/2019/the-pentax-mx-doing-the-one-camera-thing-to-aid-a-lack-of-inspiration/