Pentax 17: A new film camera in 2024

When Ricoh announced they are working on a new film camera we didn’t know if it is going to be a half frame shooter. Like many of you I assumed it will be a 35mm full frame camera but all of us were surprised when they did the first reveal. I was disappointed that it was going to be a half frame camera and yet I pre-ordered one…

The order was filled surprisingly quick! Unboxing a brand new film camera is something I had not experienced in my life until this point. The new cameras that I’ve owned and shot with in the late 90’s were either my parents’ or I bought them off the black market in India and came in bubble wraps or unmarked cardboard boxes just like when you buy used cameras from eBay today.

When I put in the first roll - a roll of Portra 400, I overshot the first frame counter (because the winder is so fucking small!) but it does not matter much because I had plenty of shots left to shoot. Zone focusing took a bit to get used to, the first 10-15 shots came out blurry but once I was in the “zone” it became a second nature.

It is a beautiful camera!

Although light, the camera feels premium in hand, well most of it besides the lens that feels like straight out of a Holga system. The shooting experience was fluid and pretty satisfying but it is not for Mrinabh. The things I didn’t like outweigh the things that I loved.

Things I loved about it:

Form factor
Ease of use: From loading film to shooting to rewinding the film.

Things I didn’t like about it:

Uneven frame spacing: I expect better from a 500 dollar half frame non-tomography camera
Not very “visible” frame-lines especially in bright outdoors
The format: Half frame is definitely not for me
Lack of manual controls

This was my first half-frame camera and I hope it will not be the last one.

Winthrop in the dead of the night

Later in the evening after the restaurants and shops have closed, the serene night scenery of a western themed town far east of the Cascade.

Joshua trees in golden hour

In the last week of July, one of the warmest weeks of 2023

Shot on Kodak Portra 400 with a Leica M-A (typ 127)

Whidbey Island

Mix of Portra 400 and Ektar 100 films, shot with Leica M-A.

A Sunday in La Conner

Colors of summer in the Pacific Northwest (in Kodak GC/Ultramax 400)

Bright lush chlorophyll-cladded leaves, dry weather and a diminished assault of pollen on one’s respiratory system indicates the advent of summer in the Pacific Northwest.

Marseille in February

One week on the Mediterranean coast of France - one of my favorite cities of Europe.

Photographing in Infrared

The Location

The Internet tells me of two subjects that shine the best in IR photography: Vegetation and clouds. Since it is rare to find clouds speckled sky in the Pacific Northwest (where it is either 100% overcast or clear skies) I chose to go with vegetation for this film roll. Took the first five photographs in Bellevue Botanical Garden, then the final shot in Brightwater Environmental Education and Community Center.

The Process

Not my first try at IR photography but this is the first time I ver shot with Rollei Infrared 400 film stock. The 720nm filter I have is rated at 5-stops therefore, box speed with it on for the film stock would be ISO 12.5, I decided to shoot at ISO 10 to give me some room in development. The Internet suggested I should pre-wash the roll, I noted the drained water from the pre-wash had a thick bluish black tint to it. Then I proceeded to develop using CineStill Df-96 monobath, scanned the negatives using an Epson V600 flatbed scanner.

East of the Cascades

Pike Place in Ektar 100

Seattle Center in Kodak Portra 400

Beautiful spring day in the city.

Color pigments and silver

Soviet made LOMO Lubitel-166

A Lubitel-166 Universal made in the USSR in the 80’s - I bought this camera from an Amazon seller from Ukraine in 2022, it took months to get it delivered after transit delays (due to the war in Ukraine). Once I received the unit, didn’t shoot with it until now. I had put a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 in it many months ago to get my father-in-law into analog photography but he couldn’t find time to shoot. After kicking off my home film developing workflow I was hungry for exposed film to put in the tank to develop therefore, I finally took the TLR camera out.

There are no light leaks, I am particularly impressed with the sharpness of the images, especially since I was guessing focus over a somewhat broken focussing system.

HP5 home-brew

When I rebooted analog photography in December of 2022, it was inevitable I would get down to developing film at home, at some point. Today. I finally got to that point…

I ordered the Ars Imago lab box and CineStill DF96 monobath that came in earlier today. The first roll to go into the daylight operable lab box was a Fujifilm Neopan ACROS 100-II. But unfortunately, it came out not that great - the developed negatives strip had purple stains. But it added an effect I loved on certain shot, like the one below.

I was unsatisfied with the result, had to shoot some more to test and give it another shot. So in the afternoon I ventured out with my trusty Pentax 6x7 loaded with a roll of HP5. Few hours later I had shot through the roll, and it was ready to go into the lab box. This time I agitated the film in the soup for 9 minutes (instead of 6 in the previous attempt), followed by vigorous rinsing under tap water for a much longer duration. The result was very satisfactory: although there are purple stains on the film edge (that I believe was due to the film edge in contact with the spool), the images came out clean.

There are “some” stains in the following images but not as bad as what I got in the first round. Once I run out of the monobath I’m going to invest in individual developer and blix/fixer to have more control on the process.

Tulips

Every year I tell myself to not go back to the tulips farm and every year I go back.

The wetlands

Permanently flooded areas of land are found across the globe from the arctic to the tropical regions. While I have explored to great extent the swamps and bogs in the sun-tropical region, these wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana reminded me of the similar terrain in Assam, in north east India where I spent the first twenty something years of my life.

Shot on Hasselblad X2D, during a conducted tour of a wetland near New Orleans earlier today.

New Orleans: Day One

Beautiful Wednesday afternoon and evening in French Quarter

Plants

I love photographing columns of sunlight percolating through thick vegetation and illuminate plants and their characteristics near ground. It reminds me of the very different tropical and sub-tropical forests in the place where I lived twenty years ago.

The first species in kingdom Plantae appeared about 1200 million years ago in water and complex plants appeared just 200 million years afterwards. First members of animal kingdom appeared after another 400 million years down the timeline.

The second roll of CineStill 800T (35mm)

Snohomish in Spring Sun

It’s really beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest when it is not raining.

Shot on Kentmere Pan 100 film.