Asahi Pentax SP (1964)
The Asahi Pentax SP is a milestone in the history of the 35mm SLR, but the surviving record on it is thin. What is firmly documented comes mostly from the manufacturer's own history page. Ricoh Imaging lists "Asahi pentax SP (1964)" in its Pentax course. It says the camera had a TTL metering system using an averaging method that measures light passing through the lens - "for the first time." That makes the SP a pioneering body in through-the-lens metering, a feature that became standard across the industry in the years that followed.
A Medium article on the camera's history backs up the 1964 date and says Asahi produced the SP four years after a prototype. Period owner descriptions call it a fully mechanical camera with manually selected shutter speeds. The M42 screw mount is commonly associated with the Spotmatic line. A Japanese retrospective from 2021 calls it "a famous 35mm film SLR that the grandfather generation would have used." That reads as a workaday classic, not a rare collectible.
The gaps are wide. There is no original price, no weight or dimensions, no explicit shutter speed range, and no confirmed ASA range. A 20-3200 figure appears in some listings, but it is flagged as possibly belonging to the later SP II. No professional period reviews of the SP surfaced in the research either, so contemporary reception has to be inferred from the manufacturer's own claims and later owner retrospectives. The SP is sometimes confused with the later Spotmatic F, which is a distinct model with different features.
Surviving market listings suggest the SP is still affordable and easy to find. A European dealer lists one at €150, and Japanese auctions show bodies with an Auto-Takumar 55mm f/1.8 lens at around ¥45,000. No consistent collectibility data exists.
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.