The First New Film Camera in 20 Years Was Just Released. Our Photo Experts Think It’s Fascinating.
Published December 3, 2024
By Phil Ryan
Phil Ryan is a writer primarily covering photography gear, printers, and scanners. He has been testing cameras professionally for 19 years.
The Pentax 17, released earlier this year, is the first new film camera from a major brand since the early 2000s, when film photography entered a sort of Schrödinger’s box—both alive, with an enthusiastic community of shooters, and dead, with no new cameras and diminished yet increasingly expensive film stocks.
The camera’s arrival alone hints at a resurgence in film photography, but it’s also a strange beast: a “half-frame” point-and-shoot that squeezes two vertical shots into the same space as one regular shot at the expense of image quality. And it isn’t cheap, either, at $500.
The reaction from the film community? Well, let’s say it’s been mixed.
As camera nerds, we were fascinated. Was this the start of a new wave of film cameras or a puzzling one-off? There was only one way to find out: getting our hands on the Pentax 17 and shooting with it ourselves.
Pentax 17
A fun, small, and simple film point-and-shoot
This basic film camera has a sharp lens, works well in full-auto mode, and gives you double the shots of a typical film camera. The trade-off: grainier images and a tricky focusing system.
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