I was around back in those days and can tell you that Pentax never had the professional market, at least in the US. Pentax was what you, or at least I, bought if you could not afford 375 1961-dollars for the Nikon F.
A lot of would be freelancers used Pentax, or Minolta back then because they were cheaper, but Nikon already had the professional market tied up. Mostly because Nikon USA (or was it EPOC back then?) provided all kinds of free services to the newspapers and big name magazines like free on site service, loaners, and of course great big discounts. Yes, Nikon gave cameras away to "names", but so did most of the other camera manufactures. Canon does most of that stuff today which is why they are now the "pro" camera.
Also you have to realize at one time the camera makers only made one camera. Even when they had a couple in the lineup the cheaper one was only a stripped version of the more expensive one. For instance a Pentax H1 was a H3 with only a 1/500 top speed. A Nikon S-3 (Rangefinder camera) was an SP with a simpler viewfinder. The Nikon F was their only SLR for long time, then they added the metered prism as a higher priced model. Then they came out with the Nikkorex to compete with Pentax, Minolta, and all the other similar cameras. In the 70's when the market was booming all of them started making a multitude of models. The other pro SLR in the 60's and 70's was the Topcon C, and later the Super D, but they never broke into the PJ market because Nikon had that tied up.
If you are interested, before the Nikon F/F-2 (1965-1985) the PJ's mostly used Rolleiflexs (1955-1965). And before that the news camera in the US was of course the Speed Graphic. Before the Speed Graphic (1912-1955)there was no news photography (grin). (dates are when they were the dominant PJ camera)
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Dan Matyola wrote:
I was reading an old Tom Clancey novel yesterday, "Without Remorse." I was surprised to find an excellent account of how N***n grabbed the lead in "professional" cameras from Pentax.
The story takes place in the '70s. One of the minor characters is a pj who is trying out a new camera. He has been using his faithful "Honeywell" Spotmatic for years, and has been very happy with it, but he has just been given a new N***n FREE, together with several telephoto lenses, which he tries out for the first time photographing the body of a girl who was tortured, mutilated and killed by drug dealers. It gives a real feel for how N***n pushed aside Pentax and all of the other camera companies by spending lots of money on freebies to professionals, so that they could make much more selling overpriced cameras to amateur wanabes.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
