[ams6110]

The K1000... the workhorse entry level SLR. Popular in High School photojournalism classes everywhere at that time. Also my first "real" camera. Entirely manual but also brilliantly simple... to set the aperture you simply center the needle in the viewfinder, feedback on over/underexposure was instant and intuitive.

[VLM]

I also had a K1000 and it was a blast from the past to see it in the corner of the catalog.

They made them unchanged from the mid 70s to the turn of the century, a good quarter century run.

The prices in wikipedia are ridiculous. 40% off, yeah whatever. My K1000 body was barely over $100 new in the very early 90s. I bought lenses on sale and they generally set me back $50 or so each, roughly a high school kids weekly part time job paycheck.

The differences between my K1000 and my father's old spotmatic were the spotmatic used a threaded lens and the K1000 used a bayonet mount (like a BNC connector, kinda) Also the spotmatic required a now unobtainium mercury based battery. Not mercury added to lower internal resistance like modern alkalines, but mercury itself was an electrode.

I agree the UI on the K1000 kicked butt. Trivial to adjust while shooting, fast, simple. No modern camera app comes close because of hardware limitations. Also image quality was vastly superior especially with lower ASA films and even a cheap high school student lens.

[hcarvalhoalves]

Pentax also had the best lens coating of the time, so even the cheaper 50mm students could afford had great color transmission. It's still sought after for it's unique color rendering, and pristine lenses sell for a premium.