Pentax 17 Review

In June 2024, Ricoh released the Pentax 17 half-frame camera. The analog film community welcomed it with open arms. There were some critics, but the response was overwhelmingly positive.

According to Ricoh, the camera sold better than expected and the company is trying to keep up with demand.

I got my hands on one, which I’ve used exclusively for the last month. Below are some thoughts, sample images, and quibbles.

Half Frame in 2024?

The Pentax 17 shoots images that are half the size of a normal 35mm image. A standard frame in 35mm film is divided in half. The “17” in the Pentax 17 refers to the width in millimeters of a half frame.

In a video, the Pentax 17 lead Mr. Takeo Suzuki (known by the film community as TKO) justified the decision to make a half-frame camera in part on economy. Because film is so expensive these days, a half-frame camera will shoot 72 images in a standard 36-exposure roll of film. TKO said in the video linked above, “we believe that this is a very effective solution to reduce the costs involved.” There are a few ironies in this thinking. The first is that to reduce costs, one must spend $500 on a Pentax 17. The second is that I become shutter happy when I use half-frame cameras because I have so many exposures; larger exposures feel more costly and, therefore, I’m more judicious.

Ricoh is marketing half-frame as a good thing because it gives more shots. And that while this is technically true, the images come with a hit in resolution because halving one full frame is also halving the resolution.

But this might not that big of a deal for casual shooters, the group of users to whom Ricoh is marketing this camera. Anyway, as Reformed Film Lab noted on Threads, these half-frame photos can be printed quite large.

Let’s also not forget that half frame was the format of Hollywood for much of the 20th century. Cinemas projected half-frame images onto the big screen.

Ricoh also justified its decision to make a half-frame camera on the fact that the target market of the Pentax 17 is the young, film-photography novice who is accustomed to seeing vertically-oriented images on social media. The idea was that this would appeal to the smartphone generation. TKO noted, it is “a camera that allows younger photographers to fully enjoy taking photos as they enter the world of film photography.”

The half-frame format was popular in the 1960s and the 1970s. Most of the major camera companies made great, little half-frame cameras. Ricoh made many of them. In fact, I wrote a review of one of my favorite half-frame cameras, the Ricoh Auto Half SL.

I picked up my first half-frame camera several years ago. I thought the format was interesting, particularly in the creation of diptychs — an interesting pair of vertically-oriented images, artfully displayed side-by-side. TKO also referenced the artistic potential of the images, though that rationale seemed more of an afterthought.

I’ve been shooting a lot of half frame lately. At the beginning of this year, I started a year-long project using a cheap, half-frame camera: the Kodak Ektar H35N. At that time, I wanted something brainless, small, and discreet.

I didn’t know Ricoh would release a new half-frame camera in the middle of my project. And the release of the Pentax 17 made be curious to know if a better tool was available for my project. I compared the Kodak Ektar H35N and the Pentax 17, and the results of my test might surprise you.

Anyway, back to the Pentax 17.

Handling

The camera is a joy to use. It feels great in the hand. It’s sturdy and well engineered. I love using it. It’s not perfect, which I’ll discuss below. And if it does feel like a toy, as some have suggested online, it feels like a premium one.

The viewfinder is bright, crisp, and clear. It’s easy to see the frame lines. When looking at the viewfinder at a distance, it has a wonderful yellow reflection to it. It is a little jewel.

More importantly, I love that I’m able to use the Pentax 17 with one hand. Accessing the focus dial on the lens, the program dial on the top of the camera, the on/off switch, and the film-advance lever with a few fingers is surprisingly easy while the other fingers latch onto the battery grip.

I like the film-advance lever. It is smooth and satisfying to use. The film loading mechanism is great. And the exposure compensation dial is a nice touch.

Learning the settings, shooting modes, and focus icons is quick. And while I dislike the zone focusing distance icons, it is not difficult to remember the focusing distances the focusing distances they relate to (more on this below).

Image Quality

We can marvel at the camera as an object all day long, but does it function in the way one would hope? Can it, in other words, produce a nice image?

I’ll let you decide.

Below are some sample diptychs, shot on Kodak Gold 200. Apart from pixelating my son’s face, they’re unedited scans from my local lab. I resized the images to be 2000 pixels wide and, to save server space, exported in Adobe Photoshop with the jpg quality on “low.” Click on an image to enlarge it.

What do you think?

Me? I think the camera can produce some nice images, technically speaking. The “Auto” mode makes quick snapshots brainless. The “Bokeh” mode, even when used at 4 feet or 5.6 feet, is nice to have.

In terms of image quality, handling, and reliability, the Pentax 17 is one of the best half-frame cameras I’ve used (and I’ve used a number of vintage and modern half-frame cameras).

But of course the image quality would be good on a modern $500 camera.

But how good is it compared to the competition? Is a $500 half-frame camera ten times better than a $50 half-frame camera?

I explored this question in an article. The results are interesting.

Problems with the Pentax 17

The Pentax 17 is great, but it is not without some issues.

Let me preface this with the caveat that these are my opinions, some of which I’ll admit are nit-picky.

Firstly, the mode dial can be difficult to read at times. Maybe this is because I’m getting older and now need reading glasses, but I’ve confused the letter B (bulb mode) with the letter P (program) on more than one occasion. I’m sure muscle memory will compensate for this after a while.

Muscle memory won’t fix the next issue with legibility. The film counter display needs to be a little bit bigger and/or brighter too. Film counter legibility is a problem on most of the half-frame cameras I’ve used, both modern and vintage.

Speaking of bulb mode, I question why Ricoh didn’t opt for an old-school threaded cable-release-shutter-button instead of a proprietary “cable switch terminal” on the back of the camera. Threaded shutter release buttons are standardized and adding one would have also allowed users to put their own soft focus shutter button on the camera.

Another annoyance is how the camera’s on/off switch is disarticulated from the film-advance lever. To operate the camera, one must first turn the camera on using a switch. Then, users must pull the film-advance lever out from its closed position before advancing the film, which does nothing electronically or operationally (yes, you can still activate the shutter with the film-advance lever in its closed position). Pentax calls this open position the “Ready Position.” The fact that the on/off switch and the film-advance lever are physically next to each other makes me wonder why the designers didn’t integrate them. I’m no engineer, but I want the on/off switch to be connected to the film-advance lever: engage the film-advance lever from the closed position to the “Ready Position” to turn the camera on, use it to advance the film and cock the shutter, and push it in to its closed position to turn the camera off and lock the shutter. This is how some SLR cameras like the Nikon FE operate: the film-advance lever also acts as the on/off switch and shutter release lock.

While the camera doesn’t feel like a toy, the Holga-like zone focus icons are infantilizing. The camera generally has a mature design language, and you would expect a more mature treatment here on a premium-priced camera. It is hard to take a camera with these icons seriously.

What is better to see through the viewfinder than the childish icons? A distance scale in meters. Forget feet, just give us meters. “What about the American buyers?” you might be asking. Americans need to grow up and learn the metric system, or we can just think about yards as a close approximation to meters. It’s not that hard.

I also question if the battery grip is really necessary. It is comfortable to use. But the upcoming Rollei 35 AF doesn’t have one, and it is much smaller than the Pentax 17. This makes me wonder if the designers could have simply made the camera smaller, stuffed the battery in the body someplace, and sold an accessory grip.

At this price point, I wish the camera came with a lens hood. And I wish the leatherette texture wrapped all the way around the camera. I also wish designers would have incorporated a multiple-exposure button somewhere on the camera, though there are some reports that the film rewind button on the bottom plate will work.

Conclusions

The Pentax 17 is a great, well-built camera that makes capturing daily snapshots in a fun format an engaging experience. It is small, light, and pocketable. Though, its hefty price tag might be off-putting to many casual shooters (and undoubtedly the younger target audience of the camera).

This last point begs the question: who is this camera really for, then?

If you’re a new shooter who is serious about getting into film photography, an old hand who wants a new toy to play with, or just someone who wants a great image quality on a well-built film camera that shoots in a fun format, the Pentax 17 is a worthy option. You’ll enjoy using the camera, and you’ll bring it everywhere because it is so small and light.

But if you’re simply film-curious, or just want a low-key beater of a half-frame camera, you might be better off buying a Kodak Ektar H35N or a cheaper, vintage half-frame camera.

Again, I wrote an in-depth article comparing the Pentax 17 vs the Kodak Ektar H35N, which is worth a read.