Another week, another exciting update from Pentax!
Just this week Pentax have released their 3rd video from their upcoming film photography project.
While the majority of their videos haven't released many details, this new video finally provides us with info about the camera.
I would highly recommend watching the video but if you cant, here are the key points.
This camera has been designed for the emerging young photographers market. This is the cameras best chance for adoption and allows Pentax to break into the market and then expand their product line as film photography increases in popularity
The big news is that it will be a half frame camera, shooting vertical format photos. I know this may be a contreversial take, but I ama big fan of this decision. With modern optics and shooting a high quality film such as Kodak portra , the photo quality will be excellent and vastly superior to the other competitor in todays market. shooting 72 or 48 photos on a 36 or 24 exposure roll will also be much more budget friendly in todays film market. The portrait orientation also increase the "sharability" as portrait photos are the same orientation as mobile phones.
Interestingly this is the first ever half frame camera designed by Pentax, this surprised everyone including the presenter in the video above.
The camera will have electronic auto-exposure, and will have options to have automatic control of aperture and shutter speeds. This means the camera will make use of an electronic shutter unit which has been customised for use in a film camera
While the camera will have automatic options, Pentax understand the need for experienced photographers to have manual settings and for this reason the camera will have manual controls as well
A Manual set zone focus system is set to be used on the camera. It will be operated by turning a focus ring on the lens barrel, I presume this will be similar to the old Olympus XA2 style. Where you have 3 focus zone options, one for portraits, one for groups of people and then an option for landscape style shots.
The lens sounds particularly promising. The Lens is based of the old Ricoh Auto Half combined with the optical design of the Pentax Espio mini. I have used a few Espio mini cameras and the lenses on them are fantastic quality.
Lastly, Pentax understand the need to differentiate this camera from digital cameras. They understand the tactile experience of shooting film should be different from digital, so they have stuck to their guns and are using a manual film advance lever, as well as manual film rewinding.
Personally, I am extremely excited about this camera and as soon as it comes out this summer I will be buying one straight away!
For more information check out these links below
- The Ricoh/Pentax film photography website
- The Pentax film photography instagram page