Pentax 17 digicam evaluate: Shooting half-frame movie is a decrease stakes pleasure

The Pentax 17 feels particular. As a brand new $500 movie digicam from a serious model, it’s distinctive merely for current. But greater than that, it embraces the enjoyment and elegance of analog pictures with out slipping into kitsch. It’s a number of the most enjoyable I’ve had with a digicam.

I spent ample time testing the Pentax 17 after its announcement, taking pictures on a highway journey and even at a present at an area punk membership, and I ran a handful of rolls of colour (Kodak UltraMax 400, Portra 800) and black-and-white (Kodak Tri-X 400) movie by way of it. I even tried getting funky with some very expired colour movie, together with cross-processing a roll of decades-old E6 slides (constructive movie) to C41 colour negatives. (Cross-processing is less complicated than it sounds. You’re basically simply having a photograph lab swap the chemical substances they usually use, however it results in surprising outcomes with the potential for wild colour shifts.)

The outcomes persistently impressed me, even once I leaned on the built-in flash for some low-light indoor pictures. Images might be fairly sharp, even up shut in macro mode and with the 37mm-equivalent lens shot extensive open at its f/3.5 most aperture.

While I like getting nerdy and pixel-peeping pictures from full-frame cameras with high-end lenses, I can acknowledge that sharpness and backbone don’t matter as a lot on a half-frame point-and-shoot movie digicam. You’re more likely to view the scanned movie pictures on small screens or uploaded to social media like Instagram, the place just about something can look tremendous. But the Pentax 17 does have a punch to its pictures that you just’re not going to get as persistently with low cost movie cameras just like the $40 Kodak Ektar H35. 

The H35 can be a half-frame point-and-shoot, although it’s lower than a tenth the worth of the Pentax 17, however its focus-free lens means most topics are going to look same-y, with none depth. The Pentax is a “enjoyable” digicam, however it’s nonetheless a way more critical image-making instrument.

The Pentax 17 operates so much like most analog cameras earlier than it, with a handbook advance lever, movie rewind crank, and a easy but shiny viewfinder with body traces for an approximation of your composition. There actually aren’t many trendy affordances given, other than a CR2 battery hidden beneath the built-in grip that powers the digicam and its partially computerized features.

You can set the mode dial to Auto and let the digicam deal with the whole lot, locking the main target to cowl most topics one meter away or farther. But the Pentax 17 is most participating, and yields the perfect outcomes, once you take some management — deciding on your focus vary on the lens and selecting a preset publicity mode. The digicam’s mode dial has colour coding for modes with or with out flash, and a easy bokeh possibility to make sure the lens is shot wide-open to get as a lot pleasing background blur as it might probably produce.

By manually setting considered one of six focusing ranges, you get to pattern a little bit of the “shoot from the hip” road photographer’s life, dancing together with your topics as you attempt to estimate how far they’re from the digicam to make sure focus. It’s a follow that will get you wanting on the entire scene in entrance of you fairly than squinting by way of a viewfinder, and there’s nothing like getting your movie again to search out you nailed the shot — or, in contrast, you bought some surprising and charming surprises.

As wonderful because the Pentax 17 is, this methodology might flip off some fans who at all times need correct full-manual management (a camp I usually fall into, frankly). I’m used to being meticulous with my pictures when utilizing a movie digicam since every one prices cash whether or not you’re sending your roll to a lab or growing your self. But the Pentax 17’s half-frame format — with every roll capable of seize as much as 48 or 72 exposures as a substitute of 24 or 36 — helped me chill out slightly and ease into the semi-automated publicity mode and preset zone ranges.

In alternate for a smaller picture that doesn’t print or scan as massive, taking pictures half-frame offers you a way of low-stakes freedom. It was now not such a giant deal to take an opportunity on a fast snapshot that could possibly be too darkish or too blurry. Just level and shoot, hope for the perfect, and be delighted when the movie comes again from the lab.

I’ve to concede that the Pentax 17’s easy modes are an ideal match for this fashion of taking pictures, even when a part of me at all times needs for handbook controls. And the vertical framing feels extra akin to our default orientation when selecting up a cellphone (the most informal of snapshot cameras).

The Pentax 17 has allure to it. From its compact measurement and solid-enough construct high quality to its quirky design, it could possibly be an ideal companion to doc your on a regular basis life. It oozes a barely eccentric fashion, and its informal, but not too informal, strategy to movie pictures brings a contact of magic to even the mundane.

Embracing the Pentax 17’s strategy rewards you with beautiful, timeless-looking pictures. Sure, you will get used movie cameras with extra options for much less cash, just like the Pentax K1000 and 50mm f/2 lens, which was my first movie digicam (although I feel it price me solely $80 to $100 again in 2006). But you’re at all times rolling the cube with used cameras, particularly on some fashions which are troublesome or unattainable to restore nowadays.

And in fact, you may spend far more on a road pictures digicam with extra options and higher construct high quality, like a Leica M rangefinder (I think about my previous Leica M6 is feeling betrayed that I’ve fallen for a lowly Pentax). But the stakes are a lot decrease when every picture has a built-in 50 p.c low cost and the outcomes are simply as enjoyable.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge