Shoot New York City Newsletter
Pentax 17 First Roll of Film - 18 November 2024
Issue 215 of the SNYC Newsletter
Greetings everyone! Something a little different in this issue of the newsletter. I don’t often write about photography gear. But I just bought a new new film camera and I thought that maybe I should share my experience with it so far.
In this newsletter, I always write about my experiences as a photographer and from the encounters I have with people who take my private photo tours and group street photography workshops. No two workshops or photo tours are alike. I always tailor them to the interests and needs of those in attendance.
Thank you to everyone who has taken my workshops and also to everyone who has subscribed to this newsletter free or paid. If you can afford to pay for it, great! If you can’t no problem. I’m an indie artist trying to make a living. Thank you!
And, I always welcome your comments and suggestions. Thank you!
Happy shooting!
The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes. Marcel Proust
Pentax 17 First Roll of Film
Whether you already shoot film or you’re new to it, the Pentax 17 is a wonderful camera to shoot with and it’s easy to use and it’s fun! It’s the first new film camera in more than 20 years. So I splurged. It’s about $500. The photos in this newsletter are my first roll of film in it and I’m very pleased with the results. I am impatiently waiting for the scans to come for my second roll.
First of all, it’s so small that you can put it in your pocket and it doesn’t weigh much. So even when I’m working providing tours and workshops I have it with me in addition to a digital camera. I’m not able to lug around heavy equipment anymore.
Loading the film into the camera is so so easy. That is not true with all film cameras and I can tell you that there have been too many times that I have incorrectly loaded film only to find out that there’s nothing on the roll when it was developed. This is something that Pentax must have taken into consideration when designing this camera.
The Pentax 17 is a half frame camera which means that you get 72 photos from a roll of 36. I had my scans done as diptychs and they are in the order that they were shot. I really do like having the 2 photos side by side. You can also have them scanned as individual photos. So when you’re shooting in the default mode your photos are vertical. And I do like portrait mode photos.
There are a few tricky things about using this camera. It uses zone focusing and it has 6 zones from Macro to Landscape. But the lens itself doesn’t rotate. So you have to guess which zone to choose. Eventually distance becomes more obvious. It’s a good thing that I’m not hung up on sharp focus.
I usually try to shoot a whole role of film in a day on my other film cameras. But 72 frames is too much to shoot in one day unless I hit the jackpot. Shooting film is a slower process. It takes more time to do it all. And you need to observe the guidelines in the camera to see what’s in the frame. Shooting slow is good. It’s just different than shooting digitally.
The beauty of shooting film is that no post processing is necessary. These photos are the jpg scans without any changes. I have been shooting raw and jpg digitally for quite awhile now and using the jpgs out of camera with minimal processing if any. I have been shooting digitally as if I’m shooting film. Perhaps I am just lazy. But I prefer shooting to processing and I have no idea when or if I’ll ever get around to processing my raw files. So the Pentax 17 is really focused on the act of shooting!
When I’m on the streets leading a workshop, I’m always trying to get people to stop chimping. With film you can’t see what you just photographed. Observe and shoot. It really simplifies the whole process.
It is my belief that photography should be fun and the Pentax 17 is just that. There are a number of different shooting modes and so far I’ve really only used Auto and it works quite well that way. There isn’t really the typical PASM on it. There’s a Bokeh mode for shooting wide open aperture. There’s a slow shutter mode and also a flash. I’ll be working with these on upcoming rolls of film. I did take some with flash but I’m not really a fan of flash photography.
If you’re looking for a new experience in photography without a steep learning curve, this is a good choice. I always bring it with me wherever I go now. I had expected that I probably wouldn’t get many photos that I like off the first roll. I’m surprised at how I really like the majority of them. I have one black frame and I took one photo in horizontal mode which doesn’t look good as a diptych. Only a few photos were blurry and even then, I’m not really bothered by them.
Film exercises your brain in a different way and moving between film and digital is an interesting experiment. You don’t have to be digital or analog. You can be both.
I always welcome your comments and I’d love to hear about your experiences with film. Thanks for reading.
This newsletter is about my thoughts & experiences on street photography. I hope that you find it of use on your journey. If you are able to, you can support me by buying me a coffee. No sweat if you’re unable to contribute. The newsletter is free for all. Thank you for supporting my work. Much love.
Photo Assignment -Costumes
Whether it’s Halloween or other events or people in costumes for whatever reason, it can be fun to capture them.
This is a voluntary assignment if you want to take part. You can submit your photos to the Facebook group for Shoot New York City and also on Instagram tag @shootnewyorkcity.
The great thing about the Substack app is that you can read at your leisure and all of my Substack newsletters can be found on it for the last few years. I don’t know about you, but my inbox is overflowing. Oh, you don’t have to pay to read on the app. Even though it might appear that way.
Further Viewing
Experimenting with blur and ICM.
Upcoming Workshops
Workshops are a maximum of 5 people Workshops are only scheduled on weekend days. If you would like to have a weekday workshop or a workshop in other areas of NYC, let me know with some lead time and I’ll see if others want to also attend it. Otherwise I continue to provide private workshops on weekdays and in other neighborhoods.
For those who haven't done a workshop or photo tour with me in the past I have a number of reviews on my website and also on TripAdvisor! Workshops are both for people who live here and also travelers, as are photo tours.
Photo tours are one-on-one and arranged on an individual basis for both neighborhood and photographic style and can be designed as a workshop as well. They are customized to your interests and level.
These are neat street pictures. Makes me want to join a nyc group
I bet you didn't google me