The Pentax 17, is perhaps the single quirkiest camera released in the past decade (it makes the 2022 reissue of the Leica M6 look positively normal by comparison). The $50,000+ Phase One XC gives the new Pentax a run for its weirdness, but I can’t think of anything else that does.
The Pentax 17 is essentially a better-built version of a $50 kids’ camera from the 1980s or 1990s, and Pentax wants $500 for it. I think some hipsters will pay the price, especially since good used film cameras are becoming harder to find, and new film cameras are either extremely cheap or extremely expensive (B&H lists only three new 35mm film cameras between $100 and $5500 – two Lomography models and the new Pentax 17).
The Pentax 17 is a half-frame 35mm film camera with a three-element lens and simple autoexposure. There is an exposure compensation dial but no direct control of shutter speed or aperture. There is something that looks suspiciously like a metering cell window above the lens – I suspect the exposure meter is not operating through the lens. It has manual film advance and rewind, which is itself an unusual choice. There is a basic built-in flash that can be turned off, but no provision for an external flash, nor any indication of how flash exposure is determined. It seems like it has a glass lens, and they DO claim Pentax HD lens coatings (I’ve never seen a coated plastic lens, although they may exist) – but I haven’t seen any confirmation that the lens is, in fact, glass.
Perhaps the most unusual feature (in a camera FULL of unusual features) is how the lens focuses. There is no autofocus nor any form of focusing aid – it’s a six position scale focuser. Most scale focusing cameras only have two or three positions, but that’s not the weirdest thing about the Pentax 17’s focus. It’s NOT a mechanically focusing lens! Turning the scale focusing ring tells the camera what distance to electronically set the lens to. Why? If you already have focusing servos, why on earth isn’t it autofocus? If you want to use scale focus, why not make it mechanical, eliminating shutter lag and allowing settings between the marked ones? Quirkiest camera of the decade, for sure.
The decision to go half-frame is interesting, because most labs won’t know how to scan or print it. Negative developing (the primitive auto-exposure would not be a great idea with slide film, even if you could find any) is unaffected unless an automated film cutter gets confused, but both analog printing and scanning could be confused by the unusual format. Half-frame carriers exist for some Beseler and Omega enlargers, and reasonably sophisticated scanning software should figure it out, but the average minilab will either refuse to cooperate or print/scan two frames together, requiring manual separation.
What is it, really? It’s clearly more camera than the sub-$50 film cameras on the market today, which are essentially reloadable versions of disposable cameras. It should be for ten times the price. It has some exposure control, while most of the “semi-disposables” are fixed exposure. It has the weird scale focusing system where the semi-disposables are usually fixed focus. Its film advance system is a nice-looking winder arm instead of a cheap thumbwheel (although some of the semi-disposables are motorized – take your pick there). It has a three element, probably glass lens instead of a typically single-element plastic lens. Once you get past the semi-disposables and one or two specialized Lomography cameras, the next step up in currently manufactured 35mm film cameras (besides the Pentax 17) is a Leica M-A or M6, which is MUCH more camera than the little Pentax 17. It should be for ten times the price!
Where the value proposition gets weird is walking into a camera store thirty years ago, on June 17, 1994. There were quite a few kids’ cameras around $50 with much of what the Pentax 17 offers (they generally weren’t half-frame). They had similar lenses, exposure metering and features. You’d have gotten two or three position mechanical scale focusing instead of six position electronic scale focusing, and if there was any exposure compensation at all, it would have been a “brighter-neutral-darker” switch instead of a dial marked in stops.
A hundred dollars would have bought you an Olympus Stylus a lot like the Pentax 17, but full-frame. It would have had decent autofocus instead of the Rube Goldberg scale focusing. The lens, especially on the later models, may well have been better than what Pentax has (the 2024 Pentax lens is based on a 1994 Pentax compact that generally loses out to the Olympus). The other features would have been very similar to the Pentax 17 – a few more conveniences like motorized film advance and rewind, DX coding to set ISO, and a self-timer.
Being fair to Pentax, though, they CHOSE manual advance and manual ISO in service of a retro vibe. What would an Olympus Stylus cost today, if they were still made? According to the Federal Reserve’s inflation calculator, only about $150. The Pentax 17 in 1994 dollars? Around $400.
If you wanted to spend $400 or so on a compact camera in the 1990s, you could. You could get a long, but slow, zoom lens, or a shorter zoom with several upgraded features. There weren’t many prime-lens cameras in the $400 range, but spend $1000 (or less on sale), and cameras like the Contax T2 and the Nikon 35Ti beckoned. These cameras offered jewel-like lenses with six elements, rather than primitive three-element lenses. They were built in gorgeous titanium bodies and had a wide range of automatic and manual exposure modes. They offered both autofocus and manual focus. The lenses and metering systems were the equal of good SLRs of the day – you didn’t get the versatility of a top SLR with a great lens, but you COULD get the image quality.
Of course, you could also buy a decent 35mm SLR with a decent kit zoom lens or a much better than decent 50mm lens for $400 in 1995.
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