Pentaximus!
It's one honkin' BIG camera...
Shown with my first New camera, the Pentax ES I bought when I was in high school.
Photo album, click on any photo to see a larger version
To see how the round holes were cut, see this page.
I came across several of the longer lenses over time and have added them to the collection. First was a 200mm and then a extremely clean 300mm. The piece de resistance was a 500mm I found in Japan. What a beast, the camera, grip and lens tips the scales at 12 pounds!
There's a tripod foot on the bottom for a very good reason!! See this page for implementation of the lens on my Canon SLR bodies.
I ordered a custom wooden grip from Caminstarry on Amazon. I selected the version made from Desert Ironwood as that most closely matched the original left grip. At $99 the grip seemed a bit expensive, but the finish, shaping and metal attachment mechanism made it all worthwhile. The finger grooves are deep and provide a very good grip (pun intended) on this big tank of a camera.
I decided to change the wood in the Left grip. I ordered a grip made from Plum wood from Pimp My Pentax in Poland. Here are the approval shot of the grip wood and the installed grip. It is a pretty close match to Pimp My Pentax's Right Hand grip. The camera looks pretty nice.
In early April 2026 I decided to ship the body to Eric Hendrickson in Tennessee to have a CLA and repair done. The body always had a gritty feel to the advance lever and knowing this camera knew it would only get worse and when it failed it would be more expensive to repair if I let it go. Turn around was spectacularly fast and it only required $40 in parts on top of his service fee of $350. All in all a good deal IMHO. I highly recommend his services if you have camera hardware he supports. I had previously sent the TTL Prism to him shortly after I received the camera after purchase from eBay as the little window that displays the needle would move around. $35 to make it good and check the calibration.
Upon return, I replaced all the leatherette covers with a dark green material I sourced on EBay. It took about an hour and a half to change the covers. The adhesive for the most part came off with the old covers, any that remained was easily removed with a plastic scraper and some denatured alcohol. It was truly amazing the number of little pieces of leatherette on the camera, I never noticed how any surfaces were covered. I found a better source of the camera covers stateside, Hugo Studio and the quality is better.
I designed and 3D printed a holder for the 120 roll film box flaps to help me remember what film is loaded in the camera.
The holder is printed in PETG in two halves and cemented together with the ever so wonderful Tamiya thick cement. A thin bead brushed on the perimeter of one half and then the two parts held together with office type binder clips makes a permanent invisible bond.
Work gave me a very nice bonus this year and I ordered from Japan the SMC 90-180mm Zoom, a lens I have always lusted after. Whoever packed it for shipping attached the hood incorrectly in the stored position and it took over an hour to figure out how to pry it off without breaking or cutting the hood.
Pentaximus with the "new" 90-180mm zoom.
I think I finally found a heavy duty, yet comfortable camera strap for the Pentaximus. This was obtained from B&H and is made by Porta Brace. It is the model HB-40 Cam-C.
While the ends look like they would fit the strap lugs on the Pentax 6x7/67, they will not. The lugs on the video cameras the strap is intended for are much larger than the Pentax lugs. This is not an issue as the strap ends, while quite wide can be routed through the wire bail on the Pentax ends.