Pentax has unveiled its first film camera in over 20 years, the Pentax 17. It’s the number one camera in the Pentax Film Project, announced at the end of 2022 with one goal: to develop film cameras for today’s TikTok generation.
Film photography has been experiencing a resurgence in recent years, and Pentax, as an analog veteran, is well positioned to bring something new to film beginners. Cue the Pentax 17: a new half-frame compact film camera, developed by Pentax engineers past and present.
I was one of the lucky few to be sent a Pentax 17 before it was released, and I’ve already had a good workout with the retro camera. It’s a wonderfully simple point-and-shoot to the best mirrorless I use every day for photography and video.
I actually shot the Pentax 17 on 35mm film for the first time in years, so how was the experience and was it worth the wait for the 17?
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A film camera for 2024?
As a serious photographer, I wasn’t too excited about the Pentax 17 at first. It felt too light, too plastic, too toy-like. And its shooting mode selector with the “bokeh” setting seemed too beginner-friendly.
But my first and last real analogue experience was in the 90s and 20th century, with old SLRs made from real metal parts. Now it’s 2024 and there’s a new crowd embracing film, and the more I thought about Seventeen, the more sense its design made.
It sits somewhere in the middle between traditional SLRs like the Pentax ME Super and a compact film camera like the Kodak H35 Ektar. If your primary camera is a smartphone, then the Pentax 17 is a reasonable introduction to film.
You get a compact design, simple point-and-shoot controls and a small fixed wide-angle lens with a slightly tighter perspective to the main camera on your phone, because the Pentax 17 is half film camera, which again makes a lot of sense for 2024.
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Half format cameras use the widely available 35mm film, only you get twice the number of shots per film roll. I had a bunch of 24-shot rolls of color and black-and-white film on hand, where a half-shot gives me 48 shots per roll, but you can get 36-shot rolls of film (for 72 half-shots -frame shots).
Exposures take up half the space on a roll of film and are half the quality, 17x24mm with border (versus the 36x24mm of a regular 35mm camera). This image size is the inspiration for the cool name “Pentax 17”.
So your photos are in vertical format when you normally hold the camera, while if you want to shoot landscape, you turn the camera 90 degrees and hold it vertically.
On a proper camera like the 17, it’s counterintuitive at first, but to be honest, I’ve almost always held it normally and taken portrait photos, with the camera set mainly to auto. And if your camera only uses a smartphone, then portrait photography is completely normal.
Pentax 17 in hand – digital medicine
Once you’re ready to go, the Pentax 17 is essentially a compact point-and-shoot camera. The main control I played with is the focus distance. On the top of the lens is a scale of subject type from mountains (infinity focus) to portraits (approx. 5.6 ft / 1.7 m) and flowers (close focus distance 0.82 ft / 0.25 m). On the underside of the lens is a handy scale for these zone focus options (see lens details in the gallery above).
Otherwise, controlling the camera is super simple – the wide field of view means that basically everything in the direction you point the camera will be in the shot. Think phone camera and you’ll be fine.
In the optical viewfinder, you get handy guides to ensure that your subjects are in focus: the outer guide is for focusing at a distance, while the inner guide is the frame lines for close objects – something we call parallax correction.
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Getting to film again was a real treat. Loading 35mm film is very easy once you’ve done it a few times (remember to set the appropriate ISO rating on your camera for film) and you can’t beat the tactile experience of loading film and using the film handle. to rewind the film to the next shot, complete with audio feedback. That’s what you don’t get with cheaper modern alternatives.
Half-frame is a nice middle ground for the modern cinematic shooter: you don’t have to be as precious about every frame, but you also can’t shoot at will like you can with a phone backed by infinite cloud storage. .
With more frames at my disposal, I felt better about taking the same portrait multiple times to make sure I had the right composition and increase my chances of a blink-free portrait. However, shooting images from film at half-frame encourages you to think about the shot and work on lighting and composition.
I also love the design of the Pentax 17. The battery compartment that holds an LR2 battery (required) also doubles as a grip and provides a firm hold. And the camera really looks good too, although I don’t like the entry-level shooting mode dial.
What I didn’t like about the Pentax 17 is its build quality. It feels a bit cheap and I got a scratch on the silver effect top plate in the early days. This is not a camera to throw away. The shooting mode dial also rotates too easily – I often found the camera in a different setting than I had left it.
And then there’s the price, which I find unreasonably high: $499 / £499 (Australian price TBC) for a part-metal part of a plastic camera that doesn’t have much going on inside, is a decent bang for anyone’s buck, and exorbitant compared to (obviously simpler) rivals like the Kodak H35 Ektar and Moment Long Weekend.
You also need to factor in the ongoing costs of shooting with film. Developing each 24-shot roll of film along with the digital scans cost me £16 (about $20 / AU$30) at a local UK lab, although you can shop around and save money if you’re in a hurry.
I was initially reluctant about the Pentax 17, but that being said, it’s a well-delivered concept that taps into a potentially huge market. This is truly a film camera for 2024 and a great introduction to film photography if you can afford it.