About the product.
One of the very last fully mechanical 35mm SLRs ever put on sale, and a much better camera than the badge suggests. The Vivitar V3800 descends directly from the Cosina CT-1 platform — the same chassis that Nikon sold as the FM10, Canon as the T60 and Olympus as the OM-2000 — and it arrived around 2001, when everyone else had long since gone electronic. Its specification quietly beats the Pentax K1000 that photography courses insisted on for decades: a metal vertical shutter running to 1/2000sec against the K1000's 1/1000, plus multiple exposure, depth-of-field preview, a self-timer and a PC flash socket. The shutter is entirely mechanical, so the battery runs the light meter and nothing else. Best of all it takes the Pentax K mount, which is one of the deepest and cheapest lens pools in film photography.
Specifications
- Type: 35mm SLR, fully mechanical, manual exposure
- Mount: Pentax K — accepts K, M and later K-mount lenses with an aperture ring
- Shutter: Metal vertical-travel focal plane, 1sec to 1/2000sec plus Bulb — operates without a battery
- Metering: TTL centre-weighted match-diode LED display
- Flash sync: 1/125sec, hot shoe plus PC socket
- Extras: Multiple exposure, depth-of-field preview, self-timer
- Power: One LR44 or SR44 cell, for the meter only
- Lens: Vivitar 28-70mm zoom with macro setting — wide through short telephoto in one lens
- Weight: Approximately 452g body only
- Lineage: Built on the Cosina CT-1 platform shared with the Nikon FM10, Canon T60 and Olympus OM-2000
Condition
- Cosmetic: Excellent+ on both body and lens, with very minimal to no signs of age and use. Lens optics are clean.
- Functional: Body fully working, including the light meter. Lens works smoothly.
Included
- Vivitar V3800 body
- Vivitar 28-70mm macro zoom lens
- Original Vivitar strap
- Lens cap
In short
If you want to learn on a fully manual camera without paying the K1000 tax, this is the sensible answer — faster top shutter speed, more features, near-mint condition, and a zoom already on the front. The body is more plastic than a sixties SLR, which is the honest trade for how little these cost and how few things there are inside to fail.
