Pentax’s new 35mm film camera prioritizes style over quality

I utilized to lambaste the precise thought of half-frame cameras erstwhile I was a assemblage pupil obsessed with medium- and large-format movie (who wants adjacent less solution than 35mm?), but electing to sprout movie contiguous is already a conscious determination to compromise prime for the involvement of acquisition and style.

Who needs solution erstwhile you’ve got vibes? That’s what Pentax seems to beryllium saying with its caller Pentax 17, a movie camera that takes half-size pictures and looks astir arsenic timeless arsenic an aged beater you scored astatine immoderate dude’s property sale. But the $499.95 Pentax 17 (launching aboriginal this month) is simply a wholly caller camera, 1 that, successful 2024, takes the so-hot-right-now 35mm format and shoots smaller pictures for the involvement of amusive and making movie photography outgo a small less.

Half-frame cameras aren’t a caller idea. Olympus had an full enactment dedicated to making these tiny images backmost successful the ’60s, and Kodak has 1 present with the look, feel, and diagnostic acceptable of a disposable camera that you tin reload movie into.

The Pentax 17 handles things conscionable similar its half-frame predecessors: alternatively of capturing a horizontal 24 x 36mm representation connected a 35mm roll, it creates a vertical 17 x 24mm representation truthful you get 2 shots for each one, making a 36 vulnerability rotation eke retired a full 72 shots. This saves you immoderate money, with the tradeoff being that a smaller representation country records little good detail. (It besides means you’re natively taking portrait-oriented shots since the viewfinder is vertical, and you’d person to crook the camera sideways to instrumentality horizontal shots.)

The Pentax 17 uses a built-in 25mm f/3.5 lens (equivalent to 37mm connected a 35mm / full-frame camera) with a nine-bladed aperture. The lens has nary autofocus, but it besides isn’t afloat manual — you usage portion focusing by picking from 1 of six acceptable distances ranging from arsenic adjacent arsenic 0.24 meters successful macro mode to infinity. Relying solely connected portion focusing means the Pentax 17 is champion equipped for casual snapshots oregon slice-of-life genres similar thoroughfare photography.

As for vulnerability modes, the 17 doesn’t person afloat manual power here, either. It’s mostly designed to beryllium utilized successful programme car mode, but it does person an vulnerability compensation dial arsenic good arsenic dilatory shutter and bulb modes truthful savvier photographers tin astatine slightest person immoderate originative control.

This camera lacks features you’d find successful adjacent a 48-year-old Pentax K1000 you tin bargain disconnected eBay for astir $100, arsenic it doesn’t person interchangeable lenses oregon afloat power of settings specified arsenic absorption and exposure. But still, it offers a unsocial acquisition (as good arsenic a caller warranty and first-party repairs). This is the archetypal camera from Pentax’s movie project it announced backmost successful 2022, erstwhile it acceptable retired to marque a caller movie camera with feedback from its community. While it mightiness person been a safer stake to remake the fan-favorite K1000 oregon the highly coveted Pentax 67 and its beauteous wood handle, I springiness props to Pentax for taking a accidental connected thing a spot different.