This is a follow up to my earlier post about the recently acquired Pentax 645. I was confident that I would be happy with the results since by all appearances the 645 behaved as a well put together camera should.
Some notes and I will post the photos:
- With 35mm there is always the risk of light leaks (like I had fixed on my gifted Minolta X-700 and kind of like with my more recently gifted Pentax SF10), but such issues seem less likely on cameras with sturdy film back structures. That theory held true here.
- Shutter speeds, aperture actuations, modes, and such work as indicated by ear during use.
- One roll is hardly scientific, but I believe the shots are coming in a little overexposed when using Portra 400. 14 0f 15 anyway. One (statue shot) was actually underexposed, but I may have accidentally metered off of the windows reflecting the sun behind it. Easily dealt with a lightroom slider either way. I usually shoot the ISO on the box with Portra so I will shoot another roll with more varying conditions remembering to pay close attention to where the center of the frame lands.
- The 75mm is one impressive little lens.
- As I stated before when I unpacked the lens I thought it was a 35mm lens.
- Very sharp from what I can tel so far.
- Smooth, easy focus action.
- Superficial, but I really like that Pentax kept the aesthetic design aligned across mounts. The family resemblance to the K mount 50mm f/1.7 is obvious. I like the fact that the 645 mount 150mm f/3.5 also resembles the K mount 135mm f/2.5 even down to the integrated lens hoods on both.
- The side tripod mount worked very well with my Black Rapid strap.
- Great size performance combo for a medium format film camera.
- Image quality must be impacted compared to the 6X6 and 6X7 due to the smaller image size of 6X4.5, but after one roll it was not as noticable as I thought it would be.
- Also of note is that 15 of 15 exposures first time out really speaks to the usability and consistency of the Pentax 645. You literally cannot ask for more than a 100% hit rate. Just a joy to use.
Added a tele lens for the 645.
Enough rambling here are the pics below and I will keep an updated gallery 0n flickr. The Pentax 645 is definitely a keeper.
-ELW