Pentax MV review: Is there such a thing as too simple?

By Aaron Gold

“I’m walking blindfolded” – The Pointer Sisters, ‘Automatic’

In my review of the Pentax ME, I extolled the virtues of automatic shooting with the lightweight Pentax M-series cameras. My research took me down the Pentax rabbit hole, and at the bottom I discovered the MV, the pared-down cheapie of the M lineup. I began to wonder: do we really need all those photographic bells and whistles we crave? How much film camera is too little film camera?

Only one way to find out. I jumped on eBay, and one week and US$30 later, I had my own Pentax MV!

Race to the bottom

A quick backgrounder: Pentax divided its 1976 M-series into the manual-only MX and automatic-only ME, a bold move at a time when automatic exposure was still seen as the domain of the amateur. (Pentax was prescient; in the 1980s, photographers would begin to embrace automation in their cameras with a passion.) Given the M-line’s success, it makes sense that Pentax would develop an entry-level automatic model, one free of the extras that would only confuse the snap-shooters. Ladies and gentleman, meet Pentax’s stripper, the 1979 MV.

How cheap was cheap? I’ve been unable to find original list prices, but by early 1981, dealers that still had MV bodies in stock were selling them for around US$120 (about $415 in 2025 dollars). For comparison, the (relatively) new ME Super was going for $179 ($620), while the super-simple K1000 had a street price around $90 ($315).

The MV was an ME that had been given the K1000 treatment. It used the same basic chassis and Seiko electronic shutter, but most of the features that weren’t directly related to exposing film to light were removed. Gone were the ME’s exposure-compensation dial, self-timer, shutter lock, film wind-on indicator, and power-winder socket. Viewfinder magnification was reduced from 0.97x to 0.85x. The gallium arsenide phosphide photo diode (GPD) light-meter was replaced by a cheaper silicone photo diode (SPD) unit. The minimum ASA was raised from 12 to 25, and the memo holder – the place where you could insert the torn-off film box lid to remind you what was in the camera  – was gone.

Even the “kit” lens was subject to cost-cutting: while most Pentax models heretofore came with the ubiquitous six-element Pentax-M 50mm f/1.7, the MV was usually mated with the simpler five-element 50 f/2.

Oddly enough, while most Pentax cameras offered an all-black finish as an extra-cost option over standard black and chrome, all MVs were all-black. (To my eyes, this makes them look even more miserly.)

Functionally, the MV is much like the ME and ME Super. The controls, what few are left, are in the same place, though the shutter speed dial lacks a Lock setting, leaving Auto, 100x (1/100 flash sync speed) and Bulb. Like its siblings, the MV runs on two 1.5v LR44 button cells, and without them will only fire at sync speed and bulb. Though viewfinder magnification is smaller, the focusing aids are the same as other M-series cameras, with a split-ring surrounded by microprisms.

The most prominent difference is the meter display. While the ME featured a list of shutter speeds with an LED indicating which one the camera had selected, the MV replaced this with a trio of LEDs coloured red, yellow and green. There was no indicator of shutter speed or aperture, just those three lonely LEDs. Green meant your exposure was good; yellow indicated a film speed of 1/30 or below and possible camera shake or underexposure; red indicated overexposure. Pentax advertised the MV with pictures of a traffic light, claiming that good photography was now a simple matter of green-means-go.

What’s the Pentax MV like to use?

In practice, the ads were correct: the MV has all the core goodness that ME and ME Super owners rave about. It’s small, light, and easy to handle. It has a classic sound and classic look (well, maybe less-so since there’s no black-and-chrome option.) Like other Ms, the MV has the Magic Needles take-up spool, which makes loading film nearly foolproof (and, if you load carefully, will let you get an extra two or three exposures on each roll).

And it shares the chief advantage of Pentax’s auto-exposure architecture: the shutter is stepless, so if the meter calculates the ideal shutter speed at 1/642 of a second, or 1/23 or 1/849, that’s how long the shutter will stay open. Even with an SPD meter, that makes the MV accurate enough for slide film.

Best of all, the MV will pull off the same long-exposure party trick as the ME: While the manual says the shutter is rated to a maximum of eight seconds, in reality it will reliably meter much longer exposures (though compensating for reciprocity failure is still up to the photographer).

While some of my fellow Pentaxians have claimed the MV feels cheaper than the ME and ME Super, that hasn’t been my experience. The shutter release and winder move with the same precision, although the MV is about 10% lighter and you can feel that in the handling. Me, I see that as a good thing; the lighter a camera is, the easier it is to swing around and get that shot. That said, be warned: after a couple of rolls with a camera this light, you’ll barely be able to lift your Minolta SRT101 or Nikon N90s off the table.

I’m the boss, need the info

It’s the meter display that keeps me from wholeheartedly recommending the MV. One of the excuses for advantages of an aperture-priority camera is that you’re really not giving up all that much creative control; you’re merely letting the camera set one of the exposure dials. With most automatic cameras of this era, you can see the shutter speed that corresponds to your selected aperture, and even if the aperture itself isn’t displayed in the viewfinder, that’s enough info to help you get your depth-of-field (DOF) about where you want it.

With the MV, you really are flying blind. You could unwittingly be shooting a portrait at f/8 (no background separation) or a car at f/2 (everything forward and aft of the windshield is blurry), and the display will tell you green-means-go – and of course there’s no DOF preview for a quick check before you click the shutter.

The MV is too early a camera to communicate with its lenses, so the meter display doesn’t compensate for different lens lengths. Most shooters can hand-hold 1/30th of a second with a 28mm lens, but on the MV, that’s still a yellow light. With your 70-210mm zoomed all the way out, a shake-prone 1/60 exposure will get a green light. I have no idea how I’d use a telephoto lens with the MV, except to open the aperture as wide as possible and hope for the best.

In using the MV, I’ve found ways to compensate for some of its shortcomings. If deep depth-of-field (DOF) is important, I’ll crank the aperture down until the light goes yellow, then open up one stop. For shallow DOF, I’ll start wide open and stop down until I get a green light. But that slows me down, and isn’t the purpose of an automatic camera to speed things up?

One could argue that a point-and-shoot camera offers equally minimal control, but a P&S programme mode tries to set a middle-of-the-road exposure. Because the MV photographer must set the aperture, it’s easy to have your DOF opposite of where you want it and not realise it until you develop the photos.

Also, I never thought much about a shutter-lock function until I had to do without it in the MV. While the shutter release has a fairly deep travel, it’s still easy to fire the shutter when you’re fumbling for the MV in a backpack, or even have it go off in the bag. The only way to prevent premature release (heh) is to not advance the film – but then, of course, you’re not ready for that split-second photo.

That said, I don’t miss most of the other missing stuff. A self-timer is useful for long exposures – less chance of moving the camera when you press the button – but I just have to ensure the MV is braced firmly or clamped down to the tripod. I don’t mind twisting the ASA dial for exposure compensation, and said dial works just fine in place of a memo holder. Power winder? Pshaw.

Overall, I found the best way to make photos with the MV was to set it for f/8 and just, y’know, be there.

Four stars, would not recommend

Even more so than the Pentax P30t, I’ve found the MV to be just a bit too limiting for my needs. It has all the basic elements that make the ME and ME Super such great cameras, but in simplifying the MV, Pentax made its real-world operation a little too kludgy for folks who know their way around a camera. Neither do I think it’s the right camera for a total newbie. Sure, they’ll get good exposures with the MV, but without a sense of DOF, they might still be disappointed in the photos.

Apparently, the late-1970s market agreed that the MV was a bit too parsimonious. Not long after its debut, Pentax added the MV-1, which restored the self-timer, memo holder, and winder socket. None of these would address my issues with the MV, but it indicated some awareness on Pentax’s part that the MV was too minimalist for a lot of photographers.

In 1981, Pentax replaced both cameras with the MG, which adopted the ME Super’s meter display (a list of shutter speeds with green LEDs for “safe” speeds, yellow for slow, and red for under/over-exposure). To me, that meter display makes the MG the best of the automatic-only Pentax Ms. Again, the market must have agreed, because the MG stayed in the line-up until the end of the M-series in 1984.

The MV occupies a curious spot in today’s used-camera market. It’s not a well-known model, which keeps the prices down, but nor is it priced significantly cheaper than other automatic Pentaxes, as it probably ought to be. As always, patience is the buyer’s friend: my $30 MV (plus shipping) came bundled with a Pentax-M 50/2, a couple of no-name third-party lenses, and a collection of new-in-the-box Bower filters that I needed more than the MV itself.

Would I recommend the MV? Sadly, I must say no. It’s a curiosity, to be sure, but I think its stingy feature set makes it too slow and limiting for experienced photographers and (potentially) too frustrating for newbies. It pains me to say that, because the basic chassis is so good, and I still like the idea of an automatic-only camera. Unfortunately, I struggle to imagine a use case that wouldn’t be better served by the ME, MG, or a Nikon EL.

I guess you can have too little camera, after all.

Pentax MV

FOR: Light weight, accurate auto-exposure system, excellent lens availability.

AGAINST: Lack of viewfinder info hinders creative control.

VERDICT: A simplified camera that complicates your photography.

Specifications 

• Year of introduction: 1979
• Exposure modes: Aperture-priority automatic
• Focus: Manual
• Film advance: Manual
• Lens mount: Pentax K bayonet
• Shutter: Electronic, metal-blade, vertical travel
• Shutter speed range: 1/1000 – 8s
• Flash sync speed: 1/100
• Film speed range: 25-1600 ASA
• Meter: Silicon photo diode (SPD), TTL, center-weighted, open aperture
• Meter display: LED “go/no-go”
• Viewfinder info: Light meter, flash ready
• Focusing aids: Horizontal split-screen with microprism collar
• Exposure compensation: Via ASA dial
• Battery: Two LR-44 alkaline
• Flash connection: Hot shoe
• Built-in flash: No
• Self-timer: No
• DOF preview: No
• Mirror lock-up: No
• Motor drive: Not available
• Data back: Not available
• Weight (body only): 420g