Pentax mz 50 - Is it any good

Mellor

Has anyone any expierence with this camera?
A person I work with is selling this for a reasonable price.
I am not expecting it to be a great camera, but wondering is it worth taking the offer.
I have no other camera other than a Canon digital,
Have been toying with the idea of getting an SLR to have about.

Any help or advice appriciated

pete4130

I've got one. It was my first camera, got it back in April 2000. I got it with the kit 35-80mm 4-5.6 lens. They also came with a kit 28-80 lens which was a bit more money at the time.
It's a fine camera, not the most high tech in the world (1 AF point in the centre of viewfinder which is bases the majority of the exposure on) and its really simple and easy to use. I think it can shoot at 2.5 frames a second? I think the MZ-50 wasn't all that common either. I remember being in NYC with it and seeing how much it cost there back in 2001 and all I could see where older MZ-30's. It's small and light too!

The downsides to the camera would be the small viewfinder (but thats to be expected with a consumer camera) and the viewfinder can be a little dark (although my kit lens of f/4.0 could have had something to do with that?).
There is no DoF preview button either (I got round this by selecting the aperture I wanted on the lens rather than on the camera and slightly disconnecting the lens from the connectors on the body so the lens would shut down the the aperture selected to allow me to view my DoF, then reconnect the lens and put it back in auto mode for the aperture!)

All in all its a good camera once you get it at the right price. I think mine cost me IR£385 at the time?

I never bothered selling mine as I stupidly tried to clean a small amount dust from the mirror with air spray and managed to blow even more dust up into the pentaprism, so looking through the viewfinder its horribly dirty but doesn't affect the images.

If you do buy it, I have some lenses if your interested in buying them. I have the Pentax 17-28mm 3.5-4.5 fisheye zoom lens (fisheye at 17mm!) which cost me something ridiculous at the time. The fisheye zoom is a really good lens. I also have some cheap 70-200 Tamron or Tokina I got 2nd hand in B&H for €85 or something. The telephoto does the job but the AF is noisy and is has the recoil of a hand pistol probably!

If you do get the MZ-50 and are interested in some lenses drop me a PM. They've been sitting almost idle for a few years getting the odd bit of use here and there.

Pete.

Mellor

Thanks for the reply, some of it did go over my head though, as I have no exp and am basically new to shooting. Understood AF and fps, but the lens types 35-80mm etc were above me (i understand what they stand for, I just don't understand what this means in terms of results).
What would be considered a good price?

pete4130

Well, the numbers (35-80) are the focal length (how wide and how zoomy) the lens can go. the lower the number eg.35mm the wider it can see and the higher the number eg. 80mm the more zoomy it is. As for price, it's hard to tell. Check on ebay to see how much they are going for perhaps. If it is just the body alone then perosnally I would feel that about €50 would be the max I'd be willing to pay and if its the body with a lens (if its the kit lens) then possibly no more than €80. Thats just my personal opinion if I was selling my MZ-50. I'd probably ask for €100 for body and lens and be happy with €80.

Mellor

I decided to go for it any way, got body and the 28-80 pentax lens and case for €50, so happy enough. Im new to this kind of photgraphy, so baby steps.

Saruman

Had one of these ages years ago, before digital camera's got to SLR quality. I sold it to someone on boards, i think Frankenfurter RIP.

pete4130

The 28-80 is a better lens than I got with it, its that bit wider which is good, maybe its a bit faster too.

Here are a couple of shots from my Pentax MZ-50 from a few years ago. You got a good deal on the camera too!

If you decide you want more lenses just gimme a shout.

Pete.