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Thursday, 21 December 2023

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I'd say the two halves of this post are in a somewhat apt juxtaposition. I was surprised by the claim in one of the Pentax film project videos that Pentax's current engineers couldn't fully understand the workings of the company's old mechanical film advance mechanisms from studying blueprints and cameras, and needed help from retired colleagues.

Yes, I think most, though not all, of this blog's readers will be disappointed with Pentax's first issues from this project. For me, it would depend a lot on the lens. Lots of pros liked and used the Olympus Epic and its ilk for personal use. And in the used fleet, these types of cameras are the ones that have aged and broken down the most; more quickly than the older metal mechanical marvels, I think, leaving a gap at the entry level.

Again, though, Pentax seems interested in the higher levels too. It's just that they've decided to start with a focus on accessibility and growing the market. Seems sensible to me, too.

A short discussion of the word ‘ye’. It’s likely that the people of 16th and 17th century England would have spoken that as ‘the’. The word was originally spelt with a now-vanished letter, called ‘thorn’, which equated to our modern ‘th’. Apparently during the later Middle Ages it started to be written rather like ‘y’, and when printing came along the printers simply used y instead of thorn. Most probably their readers would have read it as thorn, and thus pronounced the word ‘the’.

In more recent centuries ye has become an example of falsely antique English - lots of pubs have ‘ye’ in their name, e.g. Ye Olde Gibbet (I made that one up).

There’s a good Wikipedia article about it.

It isn't common at all to see wood panelled churches, so I'll take a ride out to Little Gidding in the spring; it's not much more than 40 miles away.

There's quite a cluster of churches in that area, and if Little Gidding church is closed, St James the Great at Thurning, under three miles away as the crow flies, looks interesting.

"I would build a little house with a darkroom in the basement and take up film photography again. I honestly would."

Hopefully this is not a brutal comment, but I think this is just nostalgia speaking.

There is no perfect camera situation in wait for ANY of us. It certainly isn't lurking beyond the far horizon of what we don't have.

I firmly believe that picking up the camera you have (in your case, a wonderful looking black and white Frankencamera)and using it would be a beautiful solution to all your photographic needs.

Cheers.

[Well, I wouldn't be giving that up. :-) --Mike]

Funny how people still travel on large ocean liners today, only now they go round in circles for fun. I wonder how many photos are taken on phones during one of those cruises.


I was sorting and moving gear among office cabinets this afternoon and came across a fully-functioning K1000. It is a classic gem, perhaps even iconic. Even the shutter speeds sound about right although I won't have a chance to test them for a few days.

Regarding appeal to younger generations, perhaps one simple initial approach would be to dust off the K1000 fabrication line, if it still exists, and make a few modernizations, such as using current batteries, tighter tolerances and more rugged internal metals, a faster top shutter speed, and a choice between center-weighted and spot metering.

Really, very little else is needed; adding more would distract from its classic minimalism. It's already just right, like a haiku or good Japanese calligraphy.

Using a minimalist approach might make it affordable to students. The upper-crust could be accommodated by redesigning the LX, perhaps with some direct-from-factory brassing of top and bottom plates and a discreet red dot with a stylized P inside.

Xers and Millenials aren't even young people anymore. The oldest millenials are 43 this year, Xers are even older. If you look at management books, they are all about how to deal with with Gen Z.

I honestly don't see why a new "premium" film camera today is "big news." Pentax isn't going to out-Leica Leica, so it doesn't work as a Veblen good. And if you are looking for a practical film camera to indulge your nostalgia, why not an $89 K1000? Or a Mamiya 6 for $1375? (Current quoted price at KEH).

Mother Julian's quote: "But it's not me and the likes of me who need to be satisfied; it's Gen Z and Millennials whom Pentax ought to be listening to, and whose wants, desires, and concerns should to be served" is right on target. This is where the product will succeed, not with us older folks who probably still have a few film cameras hanging around. I shoot almost exclusively digital these days, but for fun I sometimes take out film cameras. My favorite is a Tenax II with a Tessar lens and am currently rebuilding a Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta IV, also with the Tessar. My Frankenkamera is a salvaged Linhof Technika 70 from which I pulled the broken RF/VF (for parts) to use as a mini view camera with B&W sheet film, color roll film, or a digital back. With digital I have checked out a few classic lenses - Dagor, Protar, Plasmat, Tessar. You might not believe how sharp theses lenses are, and with photoshop, contrast can be manipulated as desired. Much Fun!

Using a film camera without having a darkroom seems useless to me. During the late nineties, I did very little photography and was dependent on consumer film processing labs. Yesterday I was going through a box of those prints, and most of them, save for baby photos, went into the trash. They looked horrible, with extreme contrast ranges and little detail. I enjoyed the shooting, but I was estranged from the final project. It was digital that drew me back into photography. I could shoot many more photos and personally manage each step of the process.

Whatever kind of film camera Pentax comes up with, they need something else, something I can't quite conceive of now. A darkroom substitute that's easy (but not too easy), affordable and convenient. I'm thinking of a black box that prints or digitizes the negatives. A film-to-digital workflow makes little sense to me, but many modern things are beyond my understanding. Maybe Japan has a robust, fast and convenient film processing network, but if that's what they rely on, the Pentax film camera may be little seen and used in the USA. Or will Pentax go whole hog and start manufacturing enlargers, which is where film photography really blossoms into a hands-on experience?

[I agree John--I would never shoot film without doing darkroom too, although many people do and that's fine. What I would do (if I shot film, which I don't) would be to shoot 35mm B&W then make 8x10 prints on Ilford Warmtone RC and then scan those on a flatbed Epson scanner. That's how I'd digitize the pictures. I'd never do negative scanning. Again, no criticism implied of those who do. --Mike]

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