New Pentax 67II

[Codger]

I have to differ with you on the 67ii build quality.  Friends who have handled mine understand why I nick-named it The Hammer: as heavy as one, as certainly as tough.

[Rob C]

This is precisely one of the reasons why I was interested in this camera.

I've read that Adriel Heisey used on, together with another Pentax, the 645.

Apparently, now he switched to a Nikon D3, and perhaps updated it to the latest model in that series.

Given what you say, I was quite surprised that Rob C found it so shaky, the opposite of what it should be in a helicopter.  But it works?!

Thank you, dag.bb, you've helped me immensely!

But I never said that. I have never done photography from the air. I don't really like being there at the best of times, never mind looking at it as a way of life!

What I did claim was that I found unacceptable mirror and shutter bounce. I saw many instances of ruined shots because of a vertical band of blur on the right-hand edge of transparencies. Equally, I did not discern any exposure banding at all, showing that the exposures capability was very even, very good. I can only guess that the blur I saw was caused by the sharp jar from the first curtain stopping at the end of its travel and causing movement before the second curtain had time to catch up and end exposure. How do you dampen that well enough? I have no idea, but it caused a divorce between the two of us, which I really regretted because even the film-changing nerves would have been worth it if the results have been as I'd hoped.

I only used the camera with Velvia 50, a choice put upon me by the stock libraries. The colour looked fine, but I think it would have been even better with Ektachrome 64 which would have been my choice had I still been in the model pix side of the business when I bought it - which I wasn't. Maybe what those cameras needed was a longer shutter travel, so that in reality, you were only using a cropped image area covered by the 'good' part of the shutter travel.

Rob C

[ondebanks]

The susceptability to shutter bounce that Rob refers to was because of the inertia of the giant one-piece cloth shutter, which all versions of the P67 used.

If Pentax had worked with Seiko to devise a larger version of the multi-blade metal shutter that the P67II's contemporaries used (Contax 645 and Mamiya 645AF), it might have solved that bounce issue, AND upped the flash synch speed from 1/30 sec to ~ 1/90 sec, AND enabled a faster top speed, of at least 1/2000 sec.

But it's telling that even the Pentax 645N and NII stuck with cloth shutters, while Contax and Mamiya were simultaneously using the new metal one for their cameras of the same 645 format. In Mamiya's case, that one move doubled its flash synch from 1/60 sec to 1/125 sec, and quartered its top speed to 1/4000 sec.

Ray

[KevinA]

In the air you are always going to choose shutter over aperture. Pentax lenses are quite fast for the size. If I use them on the ground handheld it's often easy to flip the mirror up before firing the shutter. In fact I often thought most of the vibration came after the exposure. If I was using the 300mm in the air or light wasn't great I would have a KS 8 gyro on it.
When I think 400 iso was about the fastest practical film speed, f2.8 was wide open, you have to wonder how it was possible in Cessna and helicopter to take anything sharp. But it worked and worked well. I still take it up on occasion and a Rolleiflex F, pretty good results not shamed by the latest expensive throwaway cameras from Nikon and Canon etc.

[tsjanik]

This is precisely one of the reasons why I was interested in this camera.

I've read that Adriel Heisey used on, together with another Pentax, the 645.

Apparently, now he switched to a Nikon D3, and perhaps updated it to the latest model in that series.

Given what you say, I was quite surprised that Rob C found it so shaky, the opposite of what it should be in a helicopter.  But it works?!

Thank you, dag.bb, you've helped me immensely!

Robert Glenn Ketchum produced much of his work using a Pentax 67 or 645, including a number of aerial photos of Alaska, e.g.,
The Tongass: Alaska's Vanishing Rain Forest.
Although the vibrations in the 67 are a problem, they can be overcome. 

Tom

[Rob C]

Robert Glenn Ketchum produced much of his work using a Pentax 67 or 645, including a number of aerial photos of Alaska, e.g.,
The Tongass: Alaska's Vanishing Rain Forest.
Although the vibrations in the 67 are a problem, they can be overcome.  

Tom

In retrospect, a recent retrospect more or less as new as of today, I realise that selling that Pentax might actually have been a mistake akin to the selling of the 500 Series 'blads. At/for the time, I think it was the correct decision because of the professional reasons behind dumping it, but today, with a different mindset altogether, I think I could well have found many uses for it as a big 35mm camera whose edges it wouldn't have broken my heart to crop. As with the 6x6 format, it would have meant a dedicated film scanner at no little cost, but in  the greater scheme of things, that would have been something painful for the moment and then forgotten. How I wish I had been in the mental position of never selling anything away. But who knew about what was to come?

I would not buy again now, but if I still owned, I think I'd find a lot of uses.

Rob C

[tsjanik]

In retrospect, a recent retrospect more or less as new as off today, I realise that selling that Pentax might actually have been a mistake akin to the selling of the 500 Series 'blads. At/for the time, I think it was the correct decision because of the professional reasons behind dumping it, but today, with a different mindset altogether, I think I could well have found many uses for it as a big 35mm camera whose edges it wouldn't have broken my heart to crop. As with the 6x6 format, it would have meant a dedicated film scanner at no little cost, but in  the greater scheme of things, that would have been something painful for the moment and then forgotten. How I wish I had been in the mental position of never selling anything away. But who knew about what was to come?

I would not buy again now, but if I still owned, I think I'd find a lot of uses.

Rob C

Rob,

It's never too late:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pentax-67-Medium-Format-SLR-Film-Camera-Body-Only-/141191946197?pt=Film_Cameras&hash=item20dfb21fd5

Less money than a point and shoot.

Or

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pentax-67-II-Medium-Format-Film-Camera-Body-w-AE-finder-6x7-and-handgrip-JAPAN-/191071278920?pt=UK_Film_Cameras&hash=item2c7cbc5748

Less than lots in the photo world.

The large negatives or transparencies are a joy to see.  

An example: handheld and crop.  I can see no evidence of any shake in this shot.

Tom