This Old Camera: Pentax 67 Take Two.

Took a spin with this camera previously.

This Old Camera: Close Call – Almost Bought a Pentax 67

Why? If I am honest? It is gor-jus.

Look at that steampunk aesthetic magnificence!

So I decided to try it again with some urging by Hamish of 35mmc.

So what happened?

I did not enjoy using it.

The weight is significant, but in isolation I can overlook that. What did do it in? (I am imagining a lot of questions today.) Welp.

Ergonomics did not match the aesthetic.
- A wonderful thing to behold but not a camera that felt natural to actually hold.
- Don’t scream at me 67-heads. Personal opinion.
- Might have gotten used to it in isolation, but the list did not stop there.
I did not particularly enjoy the focusing experience.
- I managed to hit focus on every pic this time around, but I was not as successful last time and was not confident about it this time. May just be a me thing admittedly.
Exposure needle has a mind of its own.
- Would vanish and reappear as it wished with no tilt angle, prism smack, or ritual dance identified that could resurrect it with any consistency.
- This happened last time and I thought it was the same camera years later, but confirmed that this was a different copy.
- Which causes me to think…
How robust is this camera?
- I am not talking about its ability to double as a melee weapon come the zombie apocolypse, because that would be right up this camera’s alley.
- But I hear grumblings about issues with the chain, potential issues if certain steps are done out of order, and when you add the intermittently disappearing match needle window this concerns me.
Exposure count.
- 10. And I am spoiled by the 15-16 exposures of 645 cameras.
- Yes, the negatives are glorious massive things only taking a backseat to the even more massive 6×9 negatives, but I would choose more exposures over more film real estate if given an option.

Take all of that into consideration and if I were to purchase a Pentax medium format camera I would purchase either an OG 645 (again)…

This Old Camera: Medium Format Corner – Pentax 645

…or an AF 645N (again).

This Old Camera (Revisited): Pentax 645N

Both great cameras. The latter of which I have purchased more than once. But both lost out to another in the end.

This Old Camera: Fujifilm GA645. May Answer My “One Camera” Question.

Not a better camera. But a better camera for me. All of my favorite attributes of the cameras above…

…in a cargo pants pocket friendly form factor with a built in flash.

Where was I?

Right. Pentax 67.

All that being said, not only is this a good looking camera, it produces a gorgeous negative. Immediately obvious once I took it out of the daylight tank. Missed exposure twice. Once early on shooting into daylight. Second time was when the exposure needle vanished for the second or third time and I just winged it with whatever the last exposure reading was. This threw the color way off but there was a salvageable image as long as I converted them to B&W.

The lens.