Phenix DC303K Camera

Noah_

Noah_

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Ashly
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I just wondered, has anyone else on here had much experience with this camera?
Had it since about 2009 as I purchased it for my traditional photography college course after briefly shooting on a borrowed one from high school. On my first day of college our lecturers were checking which equipment we had bought would be suitable to the course & I was surprised that not one of them had come across my Phenix DC303K before. It was perfectly suited to the course. I still shoot on it & can't generally fault it for my intents & purposes but has anyone else shot on one of these, what were your thoughts? I'd love to know! Cheers. :coffee:
 
had to look it up it looks like a Pentax type Clone

Specs

Centre weighted TTL metering
LED exposure display in the viewfinder
ISO film speed to 3200
Shutter speeds of B to 1/2000th
Flash sync. 1/125th or slower
Mechanical copal metal shutter
10-second mechanical self-timer
Uses 10L14 batteries
Included accessories:

50mm f1.7 lens with 52mm filter thread
FREE leather look case worth £10
 
Yeah I think it pretty much is, everyone has to look it up so I wondered whether anyone else on here has actually shot on one. I have the body & three Phenix lenses that all came as a bundle from an ex student studying an identical course I'd applied for at the time. It saw me through my two year course & hasn't ever failed me. It just occurred to me I've never come across another... Curious. I bought the entire bundle for £12.
 
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wow thats bargain, post up some pics taken with it.
 
These are currently the only shabby prints I have on this Macbook I'm afraid.

Phenix DC303K loaded with Ilford HP5 400. Printed in the darkroom in 2010 on Ilford MG paper (without first cleaning my negs apparently, I'm ashamed to discover) & scanned with whichever the college had then, memory fails me. I was just 17!

TreeRoots_zpsb37c3356.jpg

50mm 1.7

Untitled-2_zps278a4670.jpg

24mm 2.8
 
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Yeah I've come across them before, they were produced in the last few years and marketed in the UK via Firstcall Photographic. They appear to be loosely based on a basic Pentax design, with modern features such as a faster maximum shutter speed.

They seem perfectly alright SLRs, although they obviously don't have the pedigree or heritage of the traditional camera manufacturers - but who cares for £12 really?
 
freecom2 said:
Yeah I've come across them before, they were produced in the last few years and marketed in the UK via Firstcall Photographic. They appear to be loosely based on a basic Pentax design, with modern features such as a faster maximum shutter speed.

They seem perfectly alright SLRs, although they obviously don't have the pedigree or heritage of the traditional camera manufacturers - but who cares for £12 really?
Click to expand...

Exactly haha. Thanks I didn't actually know that bit of background information. I just wanted something manual to learn on & have so far ended up keeping it.
 
Mr Bump said:
had to look it up it looks like a Pentax type Clone
Click to expand...

It looks rather like one of many SLRs made by Cosina for other manufacturers, all basically the same design based on bodies like the Cosina CSM, with only small detail differences aside from the mount.

just a few examples of basically the same camera...

Yashica FX-3
Olympus OM 2000
Konica TC-X
Kalimar K90

Cosina manufactured the Canon T60, a cheap FD body launched after the EOS system arrived and the last manual focus SLR Canon sold. You can see the family resemblance.


Canon T60 by cybertect, on Flickr

Once you get to spot Cosina DNA, you can see how it was adapted for the Voightlander Bessa R series rangefinders...
 
As others have said it has the Pentax pedigree but the main reason you don't see many of them is that I think they were about £150/160 new with a 50mm lens and that buys a helluva lot secondhand camera. You could pick up a very useable Nikon/Canon/Olympus kit for that amount of money.
 
These are all valid points. My shabby work above isn't intended to reflect on the camera's capabilities, more my own incapabilities haha. But you get the gist of what it can do. If it hadn't been as cheap as it was I probably would have looked further afield as I'm usually one of those ignorant brand buyers but it's served my purposes & all my film work has been to better understand the relationship between camera & light, those photographs were part of that journey. That Canon camera has identical controls to my Phenix!
 
RaglanSurf said:
As others have said it has the Pentax pedigree but the main reason you don't see many of them is that I think they were about £150/160 new with a 50mm lens and that buys a helluva lot secondhand camera. You could pick up a very useable Nikon/Canon/Olympus kit for that amount of money.
Click to expand...

FWIW, the launch price in 2005 was £89.99

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/photo-news/538396/new-film-based-slrs-buck-digital-trend

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/phenix-dc303k-launched-2365
 
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Pics look good
 
The other reason why you probably don't see a lot of them around is because it was a film camera marketed in the digital age!
 
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