Tailor-made Nostalgia - Pentax MX-1

Tailor-made Nostalgia - Pentax MX-1

I have covered a few compact cameras over the past few days and a watershed was reached around 2013. It started off with the Olympus ZX-1, with a reasonable 10MP sensor and an excellent f/1.8-f/2.5 zoom lens. The only thing wrong with this was the menu system, which I really did not like. And then the Pentax MX-1 arrived, with the slightly larger 1/1.7" sesor, 12MP, brass top and bottom plates, better handling, better menu structure.....and the cut-off corner design that so well harked back to the classic MX SLR. The black version was even touted as wearing over time wne giving that classic "brassing" that black finishes always used to. Given that I was a Pentax user who loved his MX back in the day and always aspired to the black version that was out of price range, and the camera might as well have been designed for me personally. The Ricoh GR that I had at the time actually produced better pictures, with its APS-C sized sensor, but the fixed lens was not anywhere near as versatile. So eventually the choice was made and the MX-1 became my carry-everywhere compact of choice. An equivalent 28-140mm lens, f/1.8-2.5 aperture, full range of controls as in any DSLR, close up focusing, macro mode, super-macro mode, everything that would pretty much ensure that any subject could be tackled. And guaranteed to fit in my jacket pocket and pull the shape of all my jackets out of kilter, with all that weight! It's heavy and fairly bulky for a compact, but it's still a compact camera.

So today we'll look at a few pictures and tomorrow we'll see just how that "brassing" is getting along. My trusty MX-1 though is still in full time use, and Sue has a silver one as well. It must be doing something right!