I've been meaning to get a plain-jane manual 35mm SLR for a while now, and today a fellow at work offered to sell me a Spotmatic F with a 50mm f/1.4 and a 80-200mm lens for 25 bucks.

Anyone have any experience with this camera? Like or dislike? It's pretty ugly IMO, a little larger than what I'm looking, and I have a Ricoh Singlex TLS that's a clone of the same camera, and its awful. That being said, the price is right, and if I dont like it could make a few bucks on ebay selling the body/lenses.

Should I just forgo this camera and get the FG body I want that will mount most of my lenses and that I know is a great camera, or am I stupid to pass it up at this price?

How dare you say they are ugly. One of the most beautiful cameras I ever owned. Obviously we come from wildly differing points of view so I will not provide and opinion.

Posted by argonian How dare you say they are ugly. One of the most beautiful cameras I ever owned. Obviously we come from wildly differing points of view so I will not provide and opinion.

No offense intended! That's why I said "IMO" but maybe I should have elaborated. I'm more curious about the functionality of the camera and quality of photos and overall how pleased you were with it, aesthetics aside

I have no experience with it, but you can't exactly go wrong for $25. Especially when it comes with two lenses. I tend to buy cameras under $50 without much thought and just use them as beaters. I take them to parties, under the motorcycle seat, in horrible weather, or wherever I think it may get destroyed.

You can also get insanely cheap and sharp m42 mount lenses for them. Pick it up, grab a cable release, and start researching m42 mount lenses and you won't be disappointed.

Posted by RenegadeOfFunk I have no experience with it, but you can't exactly go wrong for $25. Especially when it comes with two lenses. I tend to buy cameras under $50 without much thought and just use them as beaters. I take them to parties, under the motorcycle seat, in horrible weather, or wherever I think it may get destroyed. You can also get insanely cheap and sharp m42 mount lenses for them. Pick it up, grab a cable release, and start researching m42 mount lenses and you won't be disappointed.

This seems like pretty wise advice. Can't really go wrong for $25. And I believe my Singlex uses the same mount, so my 55 from that should work for it too

Posted by insanebuslady No offense intended! That's why I said "IMO" but maybe I should have elaborated. I'm more curious about the functionality of the camera and quality of photos and overall how pleased you were with it, aesthetics aside

With a film camera, the overall quality of the photos is far more a matter of the lens than the body. Most questions about the body would be more largely a matter of feel and mechanics and are likely to be far more of a personal preference thing than a hard and fast rule. The rest would involve reliability/accuracy of the shutter, and for those, a google search usually suffices.

I own one and also a Pentax ESII the second has big shutter problem but the F is a very good camera, very reliable. The SMC lens serie for the F permit open aperture metering and have very very sharp glass. There is plenty of nice fast aperture lens for cheap on ebay. Things like 85 f1.8, 135 f2.5 300 f4 etc. are avery nice.

I've never used a spotmatic, but I've used it's successor K1000, which is damn near the same camera besides the lens mount. It's bulky, but quite satisfying to hold and use. The film winder's rotation angle is a little far for my taste, but the light meter's quite visible.

For the price though i'd say take it, especially given the lenses. The 50mm F1.4's a great lens.