Pentax 67 with 105mm f2.4 - by Richar de Bulat
The 6x7 format is a good one and while you are not exactly spoilt for choice in this format, options are very much price sensitive, with some prices going through the roof, making the Pentax a good choice and, though heavy, nevertheless a manageable SLR.
The camera I tested, comes with a 105mm lens, which is a classic lens that most photographers want in their lens collection. This particular lens, being an earlier Takumar has Thorium in its coating, making it prone to a yellow cast or stain. This being the case with this lens, I was curious to see if the colouration would have any effect on lens performance: in the event, it appears to have had little or no effect whatsover.
I took the camera and lens to Exeter and on a day that ranged from sunny to cloudy in turns, I found the lens to be capable of rendering good contrast and edge sharpness, which is something that I would look for in a lens.
Walking around and considering the camera’s weight, I wanted to shoot around 125th sec meaning my aperture range was mostly f8 or f5.6, only occasionally opening up to f4, but with a short telephoto, which the 105mm lens is, depth of field was moderate. Fall off from the point of focus is good and the lens renders shadow areas and light very well. The camera’s meter was about a stop out compared with my hand held Sekonic, but if you use the on board settings and adjust to a slightly positive side of the reading, you will get a fairly reliable exposure. Either way, I got a usable negative using Potsdam 100.
Loading the camera is straightforward, with the film fitting slightly tightly: this was a problem with a spool of Delta 400 for some reason, but okay with other film stocks. Putting a roll of Delta 400 against a roll of FP4, it was noticable that the Delta spool was about 1mm longer, which made a difference.
In use, the Pentax 67 works just like any SLR and is smooth in operation. The weight of the camera is more noticeable carrying it around than when in actual use – bring it up to your eye and it is well balanced and steady; actually, a very nice camera to use and robustly built. If you want to shoot in 6x7 you have the Mamiya RB and RZ cameras which are very much studio cameras, with the RB being particularly solid and while not impossible to carry about, much more suited to life on a studio stand or tripod. The Fujifilm cameras are getting very expensive and don’t even think about a Plaubel or Mamiya 7, making this camera with its 105mm lens a very good choice to consider.
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