Where's the light meter for an old Pentax Asahi SP500?
It's an OLD 35mm - the 35+ year old solid steel nuclear-survivable camera. I know how to use a built-in light meter to set the f-stop: my first camera I learned on is a Canon FTb. On the left post, where the exposed film winds, is where the Canon's is, but on my Pentax, there's markings for "empty", color, and panchero. What are these for? And, of course, where can I get an owner's manual for this old dinosaur? I got this before finding a replacement for my beloved old Canon. Since I've got it, I want to be able to use it.
George Y2007-07-05T15:52:22Z
Favorite Answer
The Ashai Pentax (later sold in the USA as a Honeywell Pentax) sports a built-in stop-down meter that's activated by a black semicircular switch on the right side of the pentaprism on the front of the body.
The rotating ring for "empty, color and panchero" is a reminder that you set so you'll remember if the camera is empty, has color, or has panachromatic (black & white) film inside.
When you click it down, the meter turns on. As you adjust the aperture ring, the iris closes, stopping down or darkening your image. Your setting is right when the black needle is centered on the right side in your viewfinder.
Of course, you'll need new batteries. The original one was a 1.3v mercury PX400 that may be discontinued. You can replace it with a silver-oxide S400PX. Look around thrift stores or pawnshops. There are hundreds of screwmount lenses out there!
By the way, the second link below is for an online manual.
Unless you're an engineer, and even then, no. Take it to an old school camera repair guy. Let him fix it or buy a handheld incident light meter from b&h. Incident meters are more accurate than built in camera meters anyway so for the cost of repairing the camera meter you could have a brand new incident meter that reads flash as well as ambient light which can also be used with every other camera you use. You may want to check the shutter accuracy on that Spotmatic too. These are good cameras, built like tanks and could be worth a few $ to fix, but don't go overboard. There is no reason a 35mm camera will let in more light than a small frame sensor. If the lens is the same focal length relative to film/sensor plane sizes, the apertures are the same, the shutter speed is the same and the ISO/ASA rating are the same, the same amount of light should hit both the film plane and the sensor plane.
The meter switch is where George says (and as it is shown in his link), but you push it UP to turn on the meter.
The markings do not function at all. You would just rotate that dial to set a reminder as to what kind of film was inside the camera. Empty is obvious. Color was for color film. Panchro was for black and white. Newer cameras have a little window in the back so you can see the markings on the film cassette, but the older ones didn't. I never bothered with these reminders, as I never had the film in the camera for long enough to forget what I was shooting. Plus, the ASA pretty much reminded me what the film was. 25 and 64 were slide film. 125 and 400 were black and white. I never shot print film.
If you think the digital versus film debate rages today, you should have been around for the slides versus prints wars! Print film used to be "pretty rough" compared to today's films.