I grabbed an Asahi Pentax K1000 SE and two lenses from a local auction about a month ago. The lenses were the SMC Pentax-M 28mm f/2.8 and the SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/2. I paid a mere $57.17 after tax and a “seller’s fee.” There was no shipping since it was a local pickup. The lenses have a good reputation for being sharp and robust performers. And the K1000 is a classic.

The camera and the lenses all appeared to be in great shape, but a previous owner had applied old-school Dymo labels to the back and then secured them with clear packing tape. A label under the film rewind knob read “06/06/88.” Does this mean the camera hadn’t been used in 37 years? All the tape and labels peeled off just fine and I was able to remove all the sticky residue with a little elbow grease. When I was finished cleaning it, it was a beautiful camera. It had a striking brown trim instead of the usual black.

My first time using the K1000 was when I visted my brother in Tulsa a few weekends ago. I previously posted some photos I took on that same trip with an Olympus point-and-shoot. I’ve also posted about a box of old color slides I bought at a flea market on that trip.

We planned to be outside in the bright sun a lot. And since I’d loaded my Olympus with 400 ASA film, I wanted to go with something slower in the SLR. I decided to use a roll of Adox Scala 50 ISO black and white. I eventually developed it in Adox FX-39 II for about 12 minutes at 68°.

I was expecting this film to deliver super-fine grain. And it did that! And boy, oh boy, was it contrasty. I think I’ll reduce my development time the next time I shoot this film. I shot at box speed, but I messed up my metering on some of the shots, overexposing them by a lot. I shot manually and without the benefit of the camera’s onboard meter because I haven’t even taken the time to install a battery that would power it. Instead, I used Sunny 16 most of the time. But the shots that came out look really good. Since I didn’t finish the entire 36 exposures in Tulsa, a few of the frames are from good ole ICT I took when I returned home. I used the 28mm lens for most of the shots on the roll.