An Overview of the New Pentax Half-Frame Film Camera
On Monday, June 17th, 2024 Pentax released a new film camera for the first time in around 20 years. This is the Pentax 17, a half-frame, zone-focus camera aimed at advanced amateur photographers around the world.
But what IS the Pentax 17? What’s it like and how does it perform? That’s what we’ll attempt to answer here. There’s a full review available here, this short article is more about communicating the features and specifications of this new camera.
Build, Controls, & Battery
The Pentax is made almost entirely of plastic and weighs about 290g without film or the required CR2 battery installed. It’s about 125mm long, 75mm tall, and 55mm thick. The top and bottom plates of the camera are painted a champagne-ish gold color and seem to have some treatment to make them feel a bit more like metal. The rest of the camera is black.
The Pentax 17 has various mechanical control dials meant to help the photographer gain creative control. This includes a physical focus ring as well as dials for exposure compensation, ISO, and modes. There’s also a tactile on/off switch and, of course, manual film advance and rewind levers. It also has a small built-in flash.
The entire camera is powered by a single CR2 battery. The battery compartment is located inside the camera’s front grip and can be accessed by unscrewing a silver screw on the side of the camera. According to Pentax, a battery should last around 10 rolls assuming the flash is fired for 50% of the shots.
The camera is rated for use between 0 and 40ºC (32 to 104º F) with humidity ratings below 85%.
Lens, Focus, & Viewfinder
The Pentax 17 has a 25mm f3.5 Pentax HD lens. This lens has the same field of view as a 35mm lens on a full-frame film or digital camera. It’s a triplet lens, consisting of 3 elements in 3 groups.
As mentioned, the camera uses a zone-focus system. This is similar to fully manual focus, but with “clicks” in the focus ring at designated distances. The Pentax 17 can focus anywhere from infinity to 0.25m with focus zones at 0.25m, 0.5m, 1.2m, 1.7m, 3m, and infinity (0.82, 1.7, 4, 5.6, 10, or infinity feet). There is a distance scale on the bottom of the lens and pictograms on the top of it, ranging from a flower (0.25m) to a mountain (infinity).
When in “Auto” mode, the camera’s focus is fixed. The focus ring only affects focus when in program mode, bokeh mode, bulb mode, or night mode. The lens has 40.5mm filter threads and can accept any filters or accessories of this size.
The Pentax 17’s viewfinder is an albada-type, meaning it uses a mirror to create the illusion of frame lines in the finder. These frame lines represent the edges of the frame with the camera’s 25mm lens. There are also parallax correction lines in the finder to assist in close-focus composition. It’s also possible to see the pictograms from the focus ring through the viewfinder.
Shutter, Metering, & Flash
The Pentax 17 uses an electronic in-lens shutter with speeds from 4 seconds to 1/350 of a second. The shutter speed is set automatically by the camera in all modes except for bulb. Program mode limits the shutter speed to 1/30 of a second or above, with night mode handling between 4 seconds and 1/30 of a second.
The camera uses “partial metering” read from a small sensor above the lens. It does not read through the lens (TTL) but because the sensor is within the filter thread any attached filters will automatically affect exposure metering. With ISO 100 film, the camera is capable of metering from EV 2.5 to EV 16.5. This should cover most subjects from dark city nights to bright sandy/snowy days.
The Pentax 17 also has an exposure compensation dial. This allows for creative control of the automatic exposure system. Users can make the shot brighter or darker by 2 EV in either direction.
The built-in flash has a guide number of 6m with ISO 100 film. This means that it can confidently light a subject up to 6m away from the camera. The flash is also built to cover the focal length of the 17’s lens, 25mm.
Price & Conclusion
The Pentax 17 is available for 579 Euros (including VAT) here in Finland and similar equivalent prices around the world. For that price, you receive the camera, a wrist strap, a lens cap, an instruction manual, battery (CR2), and a box.
That about summarizes the specifications new half-frame film camera from Pentax. It’s a big deal to see a new film camera from any manufacturer, much less one with the extensive history of Pentax. If you’d like to read more of our impressions and opinions about this camera, click here to read our full review.
Click here to get your own Pentax 17!
