Pentax K1000: Insane Complete Camera Disassemble

When you were young, I am sure you, just like me, loved to take things apart just to see how they worked. It’s part of a learning process I think, or maybe I just want to tell myself that so I feel better about breaking so many things that were working, just to check out what they looked like on the inside. It’s not exactly science to break something, rather it’s reversed engineering in its simplest form. The putting-it-back-together part never really found its way into my schedule, but today I am more careful about what I take apart, and how I put it back together. I would probably say that I am way better at taking things apart on the screen, like a code, a design or whatever you might wanna throw at me. The technical part of things only goes as far as the edges of what makes up a computer.

What if you had yourself a Pentax K1000 camera, and you wanted to peak inside of it? Well, I am sure you wouldn’t go about it like photographer Todd McLellan did when he started taking apart his Pentax camera. A few clicks later and voila, there is your camera all disassembled and neatly put on display for you to photograph. Oh, but wait! Now you don’t have a camera to capture your epic adventure into the world of the little pieces that make up a camera.

Of course Todd had another camera to materialize the disassemble for other people’s enjoyment. All these pieces make up the Pentax K1000, so no wonder this camera, which has been in production for over 20 years, is one of the finest pieces of equipment a photographer can own. I keep wondering if he documented the whole disassemble just to put it back together again. I know for sure that I wouldn’t have the slightest clue where to start. Do I start with that black plastic… uh… “thing” at the bottom right of the poster or…?

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