Asahi Pentax SL

Focus

Manual

Mount

M42

Format

35mm

Metering

none (accepts a clip-on meter via the shutter-dial notch)

Spec Notes

A Spotmatic-family body with the TTL meter deleted - Pentax hedging its bet on TTL metering. In Ricoh's official archive as 'ASAHI PENTAX SL', listed after the SP. Sold as the Honeywell Pentax SL in the US; it is NOT part of the H-numbering. Chrome and black finishes. YEAR: September 1968, from Japanese used-camera media, corroborated by en.Wikipedia, a serial-span statement and a dealer's description of an original 1968 announcement document. NO RICOH DOCUMENT PRINTS A YEAR FOR THE SL. Outliers recorded and rejected: 1965 (collectiblend), circa 1970 (collection-appareils), 1966 (a second Kamerastore listing that contradicts the vendor's own first one). End year left unconstrained: the only figure, 1974, is single-source and derived from a serial span. SELF-TIMER OMITTED - asserted by one source only. WEIGHT OMITTED - 604 g vs 608 g from the same vendor. NO ASAHI PENTAX SL2 EXISTS: absent from Ricoh's archive, the PentaxForums M42 body list, the butkus manual index, AOHC and lens-db. Do not create that row.

Shutter Type

mechanical focal-plane (horizontal cloth)

Exposure Modes

manual

Viewfinder Type

SLR fixed pentaprism

Introduced

1968

Max Shutter Speed

1/1000