These are my first four half-frames from last week’s photo-walk with @glazerscamera and @pentax_us, trying out the Pentax 17 they’d loaned us as part of Analog Week. I’d wanted to more consciously pair up the diptychs but that went out the window quickly – like, as soon as I loaded the roll and couldn’t quite figure out how far the roll needed to advance from the tiny frame counter. I’d initially worried that I’d get a bunch of blurry photos with this zone-focus camera, but it turns out the real issue was keeping my damn fingers out of the frame…
This gentleman chatted us up, telling us how he misses film, having lost a bunch of priceless cameras when his storage unit was broken into. He and his wife had been wondering if we were in a photography class, seeing so many of us swarming the Farmers’ Market with the same camera.
These half-frames are from diptychs where my clumsy finger got in the way in the second shot; I have a habit of mindlessly resting my hand on the focus ring when composing my shots, which was really dumb on a camera like the Pentax 17 (swipe to the end for an example).
These are the frames I took on my to UW Campus, our meeting place to give back our loaner cameras. I somehow ended up with 30 minutes to finish the rest of roll so just started spraying and praying.
Overall, it’s a pretty camera, but for the price, I don’t like how I can’t even compose things neatly in frame when I do get the focus right. Due to the parallax error or whatever it’s called, the viewfinder’s frame is way off what the lens actually takes. If I wanted to live with keeping things loosey goosey for 72 shots, I’d stick to my BeLomo Agat. One thing I did enjoy is how the Pentax 17 forced me to think in portrait orientation again. Every time something felt too tight for my liking, I reminded myself to look for shots that I’d take with my phone.
And that’s the last of the viable frames from my first and final time using a Pentax 17 (unless you want to get me a Christmas gift).