Pentax Asahi ME

Found me dad's old SLR. I remember mum telling me that there's sommat wrong with it but she wasn't too sure (she's not too much a technical/camera person anyways) but I do know that she refuses to send it to a shop to get it repaired because the last time she did that, the guy told her that he'll have to keep it over night and well, she just couldn't part with it.

Also the paranoia of the guy ripping my dad's SLR apart and selling its parts away bit by bit kicked in. Pa-pa had paid over a thousand bucks for this little baby and not to mention 35mm and 50mm lens (no idea how much the lenses cost) for this as well as an electronic flash which cost 80bucks well over 25 years ago.


Anyhoo, I did a tad of research on it and turns out the camera IS older than me. The Pentax Asahi ME was circa 1976 - 1980 (that makes it approximately 6 years older than me at most) and was the first of it's kind to to have features like camera control of the shutter speed, stop exposure compensation, sophisticated aperture priority metering system and also a 1/100 sync speed. (Read more about it here.)

An amateur level camera for photography enthusiasts, this little baby boasts of being one of the most well received single-lens reflex cameras of it's time, that it influenced the design of 35 mm SLRs worldwide for years to come.

This spurred the creation of the ME F and the ME Super which then took over the ME bringing the level of SLRs to the next level.

Maker: Pentax

Dates: 1977-1979

Variants: chrome, black, SE

Camera Type: 35mm SLR

Focusing: manual

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Lens mount: Pentax K

Shutter: focal plane Seiko MFC-E
metal curtains, vertical travel
from 8s to 1/1000

Exposure meter: TTL, open aperture,
center weighted

Exposure modes: aperture priority

ASA/ISO range: 12 to 1600

Finder screen: fixed

Shoe: fixed hot shoe

X sync speed: 1/100

TTL Flash: no

Motor drive: external winder ME I (1.5i/s) or ME II (2i/s)

Battery: 2 x 1.5V

Weight: 460g w/o lens

Number produced: unknown

The above information was taken from here

I can't wait to buy some film and do a little shooting this weekend!!!