I used to lambaste the very thought of half-frame cameras once I was a university scholar obsessive about medium- and large-format movie (who needs even much less decision than 35mm?), however electing to shoot movie in the present day is already a aware determination to compromise high quality for the sake of expertise and magnificence.
Who wants decision once you’ve received vibes? That’s what Pentax appears to be saying with its new Pentax 17, a movie digicam that takes half-size photos and appears about as timeless as an outdated beater you scored at some dude’s property sale. However the $499.95 Pentax 17 (launching later this month) is a completely new digicam, one which, in 2024, takes the so-hot-right-now 35mm format and shoots smaller photos for the sake of enjoyable and making movie images price rather less.
Half-frame cameras aren’t a brand new thought. Olympus had a complete line devoted to creating these tiny photographs again within the ’60s, and Kodak has one now with the look, really feel, and have set of a disposable digicam that you could reload movie into.
The Pentax 17 handles issues identical to its half-frame predecessors: as a substitute of capturing a horizontal 24 x 36mm picture on a 35mm roll, it creates a vertical 17 x 24mm image so that you get two pictures for each one, making a 36 publicity roll eke out an entire 72 pictures. This protects you some cash, with the tradeoff being {that a} smaller picture space information much less effective element. (It additionally means you’re natively taking portrait-oriented pictures for the reason that viewfinder is vertical, and also you’d have to show the digicam sideways to take horizontal pictures.)
The Pentax 17 makes use of a built-in 25mm f/3.5 lens (equal to 37mm on a 35mm / full-frame digicam) with a nine-bladed aperture. The lens has no autofocus, however it additionally isn’t absolutely guide — you employ zone focusing by selecting from one among six set distances starting from as shut as 0.24 meters in macro mode to infinity. Relying solely on zone focusing means the Pentax 17 is greatest outfitted for informal snapshots or slice-of-life genres like avenue images.
As for publicity modes, the 17 doesn’t have full guide management right here, both. It’s principally designed for use in program auto mode, however it does have an publicity compensation dial in addition to sluggish shutter and bulb modes so savvier photographers can no less than have some inventive management.
This digicam lacks options you’d discover in even a 48-year-old Pentax K1000 you should buy off eBay for round $100, because it doesn’t have interchangeable lenses or full management of settings comparable to focus and publicity. However nonetheless, it provides a singular expertise (in addition to a brand new guarantee and first-party repairs). That is the primary digicam from Pentax’s movie challenge it introduced again in 2022, when it got down to make a brand new movie digicam with suggestions from its group. Whereas it might need been a safer guess to remake the fan-favorite K1000 or the extremely coveted Pentax 67 and its pretty wooden deal with, I give props to Pentax for taking an opportunity on one thing a bit completely different.