An Introduction: Pentax K1000

I've been getting into photography--particularly film photography--over the past year now.

I remember using film as the only affordable way to take pictures up until partway through high school, and then I received a digital point-and-shoot camera for Christmas one year.  A few years later, smartphones became common, and so I moved on to using my smartphone for taking photos.

Using a smartphone for years helped me to learn some things, such as incredibly basic composition and angles, and the instant feedback worked well for learning what did and didn't work.  My primary things to photograph were cars and cities.

The workhorse: a relatively early Pentax K1000

In early 2019 I decided to try learning photography on a higher-quality camera, but I quickly realized that a digital SLR camera cost far too much.  Instead I found my Pentax K1000 in an antique shop for $30.  The light meter didn't work, so, after talking to the seller, he agreed to sell the K1000 for a delightful price: $15.  It came with the basic 50mm lens, and the shutter speeds seemed to work.  After I got it home, I disassembled it, and my brother soldered a new wire to replace the corroded light meter circuit.

Disassembling the K1000 and replacing the corroded light meter circuitry.

After the repair.

Then I took the camera out for its first run with a roll of expired Kodak Gold 200 from 2009 or so.  The results from that expedition will be in the next post!