Pentax 17 – A ferocious flop

6 months ago (Edited)

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^{Source / Извор: Pentax.eu}

Long awaited ‘Pentax film camera’ was finally presented on June 17th, and… You know, someone should ban use of narcotics in the Pentax design team!

Before we start with tearing apart this monstrosity, let’s first laugh at the idiotic PR presentation of the Ricoh marketing team:

“In addition to the distinctive image quality created only by a film camera, this new model provides users with the fun and excitement of manual camera operation unique to film photography, such as manual film winding using the film advance lever, and manual focus-range setting with the zone-focus system.”

Oh, fun and excitement! And all of that for only $499.99 or €549.99!

What a shameless bull****!!!

This garbage cannot make an exposure without a battery, does not have analog controls, does not have manual control of exposure or aperture, does not have focus assist, and is downright UGLY.

You want a ‘distinctive image quality created only by a film camera’? You want fun and excitement? Buy Pentax Spotmatic for a tenth of this price!

Many of these old classic beauties are still working perfectly, and yes, I have one with a broken light meter level, with everything else working flawlessly. Take a cheap external light meter like Gossen Sixtino or simply smartphone Light Meter app and you are ready for some serious fun and excitement! With Spotmatic you can change lenses, learn everything on them just as well as with much hyped K1000, do not depend on batteries… And you have full manual range of control, not just ‘exciting manual camera operation unique to film photography, such as manual film winding using the film advance lever, and manual focus-range setting’… You can see how the finest Pentax tradition works in practice!

Speaking of practice… You can buy one of the many models of Praktica cameras which have proven to be extremely reliable in the last 50 years (got two of them).

Or you can find beautiful little Cosina CT-1 at your thrift store or flea market – like I did. That body was used for Nikon FM10, and is probably very good clone of Pentax K1000 with the addition of self-timer!

Or you could buy an excellent little Leica offshoot albeit with a fixed lens – Canon QL17 – which has full manual controls, similar form factor, much better shutter and flash hot shoe for only €100!

^{Source / Извор: www.kupujemprodajem.com}

Yes, but Pentax 17 is such a cute half-frame!

Oh, really? You want to see real cute half-frame? Then go see the original – jewel of minimalism with full manual control set – Olympus Pen, from 1959.

Or improved model Olympus Pen F, which was in production from 1963 to 1970. A beautiful little SLR half-frame system camera with a set of excellent Zuiko interchangeable lenses:

But I guess Suzuki Takeo (Pentax 17 stoned designer) never heard of Yoshihisa Maitani, a genius camera designer who passed in 2009. You still can find his masterpiece with lens in mint condition for less money than Pentax 17 mutant.

If Takeo wasn’t stoned, he could try to actually make improvements on Maitani’s design having in mind much higher level of technology today. Or the design team could try to revive one of the most loved Pentax models like Pentax MX or Pentax LX, improving on their weak points and adding a set of techno improvements. Many things could be done, but they simply chose to make a marketing excuse for a blind robbery.

For more solutions out of consumer aimed hype, you have to see Romping Bronco, a Pentax repair guy:

Reviews

And one more thing: These guys will refrain from the harsh words, and will not tell you the truth, simply because if they would tell the truth, they would never get another Pentax to review from the Ricoh Corp.

Watch how Chris carefully avoids to criticise abysmal range of a central leaf shutter (1/350 to 4 seconds & Bulb) and the fact that crappy flash can synchro only at 1/125 instead on all shutter speeds like any normal contemporary leaf shutter. See Fujifilm X100s, f, v or vi. Oh, yeah, it is fun! And of course, you can’t use any external flash with this piece of garbage.

What else you could do aside of the solutions presented above? You would certainly have much more ‘fun and excitement’ with any Fujifilm Instax cameras, and you would get even better fun buying an Instax printer (Instax Wide is $149.99) and connect it to your smartphone. You would get better controls over exposure elements, better choice of focal lengths, better resolution and instant photos!

As we already said, Chris and Jordan must take a ‘diplomatic’ line to save their jobs. On the other hand, you are upvoting my posts because you want to hear the truth. So, who is this really for? Here is the unpleasant truth: