pentax 17 review

I had buyer’s remorse this summer after getting my first roll back from the Pentax 17. The pictures weren’t bad, just a bit underexposed at times, soft around the edges, a bit noisy. Let me show you what I mean –

on an art date with sebastián espejo

bumped into zarina at the slade degree show

on a different art date with martina daniel telgmaa at the RCA

and then sitting in a field of alpacas on my birthday with amigazo carlos

yeee

… do you see what I mean? With it being the first roll, I didn’t know how much blame to place in the film stock (Kodak Ultramax 400); myself; or the fact I had chosen to get a half-frame camera instead of a regular film camera (by which I mean photos are portrait, not landscape, so they’re scanned it at half the size of normal film photos so you’re supposed to expect a bit of a drop off in quality, ok, like, fiiiine).

But the worry it was actually just user error nagged at me more than buyer’s remorse because, in my fear, I had used the camera’s Auto mode the entire 75 pictures. I don’t really know why I wimped out of learning the camera’s proper zone focusing modes. I have been taking film pictures for a good four years now. I guess it’s like, when you know the camera costs money, and film does, and then development on top of that*, you have to be in the mood to spend big – and spending big in this instance would mean the risk of getting a roll back of total duds. Whenever I am earning less, these moods become louder and louder and bleed out in all these different ways. So I say I don’t know why but I do really.

I thought Auto mode was me accepting the camera’s help out of this mood, but then the pictures come back with this haze to them and I go crying to Reddit where I learn that in the Pentax 17, Auto mode uses something called hyperfocal focusing. It focuses on everything from 1 metre to infinity, but to get the greatest depth of field, it compromises on the aperture a bit and leaves everything in the foreground a bit dusty soft blurry crap. Visually, it’s like it’s all a bit out of tune, yanno? So that’s what happened. I think Kodak Ultramax didn’t help the matter, coming out especially grainy on that half-frame sizing. In the end, I realised I had to, unfortunately, read the instruction manuel.

buuuuut

I’m glad I did.

a selfie on da 80

my one true love of 10 years now, michael lacey

im 5ft6 im not even small

i was in Dead Ink one day when they were packing up all the Eden Book Society orders

i went for a walk down my old road

I had a conversation with someone recently about how women in the arts tend to stop updating profile pictures once they exit their 20s or 30s and i think that is so sad. here is what i look like right now, and i promise to always admit who i am

here’s my cat coco rolling in the alley

and now my cat piranesi in the alley but she’s not there to roll around, she’s there to eat RATS

and finally, a beautiful picture of Art Date guest number 5 Ashley Holmes whose episode is now live as of today! if you havent listened, it’s a podcast where i visit exhibitions with interesting people : - )

📸

so with this second roll, I did not use Auto mode once! but let me quickly just show you why it’s so difficult not to use it. The Pentax 17 has no actual auto focus, instead it sets out zones of distance and you have to make sure you’ve picked the right setting as below – see this table that, I’ll add, I made my phone background so I could start revising ->

part of the reason I had ignored zone focusing is because I cannot tell you what 1.4 metres is, and again, the risk of guessing 1.4 metres felt too expensive, or embarrassing or something. Can normal people confidently say ‘that is 2.5 metres away’ i dont get it. And I was moaning to my cousin about this and he had a good idea. He said you can get laser measures, and I didn’t know what that meant, but then found this: the Cooper Ray Mini Pocket Laser Tool.

And so basically, for roll number 2 of the Pentax, I just kept going ‘one sec’ and shooting a laser at someone or something to see if itt was 1.7m and then switching it to the 👬 zone for example. The laser is small enough that I’ve put the keyring onto the side of the camera itself. It’s a bit annoying like. It bleeps without the option to mute it (as you’ll hear in the new episode of the podcast, soz) but I guess it’s worth the pain when the photos away from Auto mode turn out so much sharper overall. zingy zingy photos. plus, towards the end of the roll, I was starting to get to grips with gauging distance. but sorry they should still do gauging distance exams in school so people who buy the Pentax 17 when they grow up don’t also have to buy A LASER.

the way the first roll wasn’t helped by Kodak Ultramax, this roll was helped by the film. When I bought the camera off Analogue Wonderland, it came with a £100 voucher for film, and I decided to buy some CineStill 400D for £18.50 because when else would I spend that much on a roll of film (so much of this review comes down to money feelings, I really need to find a way to earn more next year holy moly). I have since learnt CineStill 400D is favoured for its capacity to capture stuff indoors just as well as outdoor scenes. I believe it. Plus the colour it adds to stuff is nice but not overbearing. Unfortunately now I only want the special £18.50 film. Unfortunately wherever it is listed in online shops, there are waiting lists. I am late to the party on this one FUCK

*I put an asterisk where I mentioned the cost of film development because for these two rolls the Leeds film lab Take It Easy kindly did the development for free to support the Art Dates Podcast. So like, you’d THINK I would be more relaxed and experimental but I guess I respect them too much haha and I didn’t want their kind offer to go to waste on 75 out of focus portraits of Ashley Holmes. When I got the scans through this week, I was celebrating. I can’t wait for the prints to arrive in the post so I can do my favourite activity: listening to music while I put everything in a photo album. After these 4 years of film photography, I have 4 years of Take It Easy-developed photo albums, so working with them on the podcast these past few months has been a delight. there is, incidentally, a 10% code off for Take It Easy over on the podcast if you are UK based and want beautiful pictures for yourselves

I’m about to travel with the Pentax 17 around my neck so I am glad it is so light. I’ve been worrying about what happens to film photos when they go through airport scanners but this incredible blog post showing results calmed me down (though part of me wants to buy film on the ground over there so it doesn’t change at all). I did have to check about the laser, because you can’t be putting lithium batteries in hold luggage, but I didn’t think you could put lasers in hand luggage either. Turns out it should be fine, fingers crossed. I have Kodak UltraMax 400 loaded again as I head off, and it will be interesting to see how much learning the zone focusing changes the quality of the images, and how much just was the film – I’ll come back and add an update below when I’ve got everything back.

Now I just have to figure out how to get CineStill to sponsor the podcast

CineStill i love you

I LOVE FILM PHOTOGRAPHY THIS MUCH