C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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The Pentax ME Super II (1985) is a minor revision of the 1979 ME Super, retaining the compact K-mount body and the distinctive push-button shutter speed control that defined its predecessor. Pentax introduced it late in the M-series lifecycle, after the Super Program (1983) had already brought full PASM to the K-mount line. The ME Super II's changes over the original ME Super are incremental - primarily cosmetic and build-quality refinements - rather than functional. It remains an aperture-priority and manual body, with no program or shutter-priority mode.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
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Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
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About this camera
A 1985 refinement of the ME Super - same push-button manual control, incremental mechanical revisions.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm |
| Mount | Pentax K |
| Years | 1985 – ~ |
| Shutter | 4s – 1/2000s, electronic vertical metal |
| Flash sync | 1/125s |
| Meter | TTL center-weighted GPD, EV 1–19 |
| Modes | Aperture-priority, Manual (push-button speed control) |
| Battery | 2x SR44 (mechanical fallback at 1/125s) |
| Weight | ~ |
The ME Super debuted in 1979 and remained on sale through the mid-1980s. By 1983, the Super Program had superseded it for photographers who wanted shutter-priority and program modes, but there remained a market for the ME Super's compact form factor and simpler two-mode operation. The ME Super II arrived around 1985 as a refreshed version of that concept, keeping the push-button speed selector and overall ergonomics unchanged while updating cosmetics and addressing minor build issues accumulated over the original's six-year production run. It was not a prominent release in Pentax's catalog; the company's attention had shifted toward the Super Program and the upcoming SF series.
For collectors, the ME Super II occupies an interesting edge case: it shares virtually all functional DNA with the original ME Super but is less commonly encountered, making it slightly harder to find in good condition. For shooters, the distinction is minimal - both bodies offer the same exposure range, the same mechanical fallback at 1/125s, and the same compatibility with the entire K-mount lens family. The push-button shutter speed control, initially unusual, proves fast in practice once learned.
The ME Super II is not a camera that changed the course of photography. It is instead a quiet product-line maintenance release: Pentax keeping a proven compact body current while the company's engineering resources went elsewhere. That context makes it historically legible as a snapshot of how Japanese camera manufacturers managed long-running product lines during the mid-1980s transition to autofocus.
Pentax K-mount. All K, M, KA, KAF, KAF2, and KAF3 lenses mount. KA-mount lenses (marked with an "A" aperture position) work in aperture-priority mode; shutter-priority and program modes are not available on this body. SMC Pentax-M primes are the natural size match: M 50/1.4, M 50/1.7, M 28/2.8, M 35/2. The Winder ME II enables auto-wind. TTL flash via AF280T or AF200T.
BW
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
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Kodak Ektar 100 is a fine-grain C-41 color negative film with saturated color and high sharpness.
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