Pentax 17 - My Half Frame Hero

 I recently bought a Pentax 17 - a newly designed, newly developed and newly build Film Camera that was released by Pentax in 2024 as part of their "Film Camera Project"

P17 & Ultramax

When I first started dipping my toes into film again at the start of 2025 there was a lot of clips, videos and posts about a new cameras that had been released by Pentax, that shot film, the first production film camera to be developed in 20 years.  To caveat this, I don't believe that claim, lomography have been continuously issuing cameras for the last 20 year, and when you consider Leica's offering too, although that is maybe a completely different type of consumer.  

A lot of what I was watching or read about this camera was divisive, people were expecting a Full Frame 35mm SLR, but what they got was a half frame, zone focusing, nearly pocketable, semi-automatic camera.  I remember talking about it at my Darkroom workshop and commenting at the time that I doubt I would ever buy it.  

P17 Lomo Turquoise 

Since making that bold claim I have bought many second hand cameras, mostly from ebay, some from vintage markets (the name for boot fares) and all in the have pretty much been good buys, I have been lucky only one or two went to recycling, and the ones that did I was able to salvage parts or even a lens.  The important point here is that some of those cameras were zone focusing with a passive viewfinder, and one was half frame.  Those cameras still let me take great pictures, and I quickly found that half frame negatives are actually better in terms of resolution for scanning if you scan with a cropped sensor DSLR, it allows you to achieve a 1:1 Macro.

Slowly, but surely the  idea of a Pentax 17 started to creep into my head, not only because it would be a good addition to my collection, but that this might be the perfect thing to keep me shooting, who knows how long my ebay cameras will actually last, some are 60 year old, the newest between 50-40 year old. The opportunity came when I decided it was time to sell my Leica CL, a camera that I bought because I was convinced that I needed a Leica, as much as the CL took great photos, it was a terrible camera to use, really awkward to take pictures on.  With the money from the CL I decided to buy the Pentax 17, and I could not be happier.

P17 and Harman Red

Overall the Pentax is a joy to use, the zone focusing works well, the setting modes are easy to get use to, and the half frame format is fantastic - especially if you roll your own film, you can think ahead and make bespoke lengths to match your need for that day, no need to only shoot 72 frames. 

The think I like most about it is that it pushes you to get creative, you aren't seeing a "live view" like an SLR so taking that luxury away makes you think slightly differently about framing.  It is a 40.9mm thread on the fixed lens, that is the same thread size as a lot of LTM lenses to filters are easy to come by, I have a full set of BnW filters that I have been using with it.  The ISO is manually set, so pushing and pulling or shooting not DX coded spools is not an issue.  It doesn't have a shoe, hot or cold, there is a built in flash, a hot shoe or even a sync cable would have been nice.  It does have a cable release poet, but a 2.5mm size, rather than the traditional style. 

I would say the thing that really trumps everything else with the Pentax 17 is that it is new, it works, its works as it is suppose to, and if it breaks or something goes wrong, I have a warranty on it.  the piece of mind this gives me, known that I should be able to keep shooting in the year to come is valuable.  I read recently that on average, those old ebay cameras you can readily access, even the best ones,are likely to only last another 5 years, even with maintenance, that has always saddened me, but with the Pentax 17, its light at the end of the tunnel to keep shooting in the years to come. 

In Macro Mode with Vision 3

Ultramax, Macro Mode

P17, Ilford SFX and a Red Filter