New Pentax 67II

[Atina]

Is there somewhere that one can buy a new Pentax 67II?

If not online in the US, can it be found in Japan?

I'm not seeing much information on Ricoh's Japanese website, and I'm wondering whether they will release, soon or otherwise, a new version.

[Paul2660]

Main announcement is in 2 days on the 13th, at the CP+ show in Japan.

Paul C. http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/02/05/ricoh-promises-reference-products-including-cmos-645d-at-cp?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_18

[tsjanik]

If you mean 67II and not 645DII, it was discontinued some time ago; there might be a new one sitting on a shelf somewhere.

[Paul2660]

tejanik:

oops I missed that, good catch.  The 67II is long gone.  You may find it on ebay.  I sold mine  years ago and even then they were getting hard to sell as the 645 had been released.  Great camera and I saw one on KEH a couple of months ago. 

Paul C

[Rob C]

tejanik:

oops I missed that, good catch.  The 67II is long gone.  You may find it on ebay.  I sold mine  years ago and even then they were getting hard to sell as the 645 had been released.  Great camera and I saw one on KEH a couple of months ago. 

Paul C

I bought one new as a hoped-for replacement for 35mm for stock; three things happened: digital wrapped up film for stock, the shutter and mirror both bounced like Jayne Mansfield doing a marathon and so I disregarded the stock agents and reverted to Nikon. If you need flash, then it's not the camera for anyone unless you can live with two shuttered lenses. I had neither focal length.

It was beautifully made, but just didn't work well enough, despite living on a huge Gitzo all its life.

Rob C

[dag.bb]

Here you go:

http://page8.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/h179606317



At $ 2900 its not cheap, but you asked for a new one. Just use one of the international bidding services - rinkya, tenso etc. if looking for stuff in amazon.co.jp or yahoo auctions.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

It was beautifully made, but just didn't work well enough, despite living on a huge Gitzo all its life.

Rob C

When I first got mine, I thought I could use it hand-held, since it just looked like a 35mm Pentax on steroids. I quickly gave up on that and began using the Gitzo.

Even that wasn't enough. My best shots were on the Gitzo, with mirror locked up, using the self-timer or a cable release, at moments when the wind was absolutely calm.

Aside from that, it was beautifully made.

[KevinA]

The Pentax 67 became the go to camera for a lot of aerial photographers. I had been through Hassy 500cm, Mamiya 645 and Rollei 600x. It was easily the best of the lot.
All the others struggled to hold the film flat and often had areas of vibration. Fast lenses and a fast'ish shutter speed gave sharp images, the big format was excellent.
 It's funny that in the air I used it because it lacked the vibration everything else had (Unless you used a Linhof and vacuum back) but on the ground it had the vibration reputation of a road drill or battery powered rabbit.
I would more often than not just use a portion of the image to fit a library request and quiet often it was 160 colour neg scanned at 4000dpi, no problem. Despite all the lab data to prove otherwise I like the images of scanned Portra more often than not, more than any digital I've seen.  Great camera I still have 3, they just gather dust now. Various Canon buy the bacon these days.

[Richard Osbourne]

I had the mark I and I adored it. First camera that made me feel like a proper pro! It wasn't reliable and ate the tiny batteries it needed for the meter. Took some great shots with it though, and, oddly, the hand-held shots were often sharper than those on the tripod. Now I understand why.

[amsp]

If you listen to "internet forum experts" you'd think every camera ever made was unusable in one way or another. I used to shoot Pentax 67 and had no problems with vibration, either handheld or on a tripod, and I took some great photos with it. The lenses have a beautiful rendering and the system has been used and is still being used by plenty of fantastic photographers.

[Ken R]

If you listen to "internet forum experts" you'd think every camera ever made was unusable in one way or another. I used to shoot Pentax 67 and had no problems with vibration, either handheld or on a tripod, and I took some great photos with it. The lenses have a beautiful rendering and the system has been used and is still being used by plenty of fantastic photographers.

I really liked the Pentax 67's. I had two for a while (one had the NPC Polaroid back) and really liked the look I was able to achieve with them. The larger format combined with f2.8 lenses like the 90mm and the 165mm is great for portraits. Very flattering. I loved working with such a large negative.

[Rob C]

If you listen to "internet forum experts" you'd think every camera ever made was unusable in one way or another. I used to shoot Pentax 67 and had no problems with vibration, either handheld or on a tripod, and I took some great photos with it. The lenses have a beautiful rendering and the system has been used and is still being used by plenty of fantastic photographers.

Well, in the collective sense of 'experts' you may be right.

In my particular case, I know of what I speak, and having owned the damned thing for about a year of pro life, I didn't take the trade-in hit lightly, especially when I knew it meant my rebuying into many of the Nikkor focal lengths that I used to have and had also traded at a huge loss to get that Pentax...  

Sam Haskins also had a Pentax 67 amongst many other systems, and I saw some of his slides at one of his shows. Perhaps hand-held might actually have been the answer - the photographer's body acting as a damper, but it was far too heavy for me to manage that way. Another problem with it was unloading film: it scared me shitless.

One 'name' who used it extensively was Sante D'Orazio; if you find some of his shots of the Danish beauty, Helena Christensen, you'll see the blur all too clearly. I already knew of those shots when I bought, but I just put it down to hand-held and maybe some other excitement. It probably wasn't, in the reality, just the friggin' camera.

But then who knows: different folks have different ideas about quality and what's acceptable and what's not, and much of that depends on the job in hand and which comparisons you are making. Hey, my 500 Series 'blads were also tripod cameras, but at least that way, and MU, they didn't bounce...

Rob C

[Telecaster]

If you browse the archives here you'll see Michael used a P67II for awhile, at the beginning of the "serious" digital era. I still have my LuLa DVDs with video of this rig in action.     Having used a Sony A7r for the past month, it strikes me that this camera is sorta the P67 of the 135 format world. If you don't accomodate its quirks you won't be a happy camper. But use it right—handheld or on a very sturdy high-mass tripod, with appropriate shutter speeds in both cases—and it can deliver superb results.

I almost bought a 67 back then. But I wussed out and opted for a 645 instead.

-Dave-

[tsjanik]

.................. Another problem with it was unloading film: it scared me shitless......


Rob C

Rob,

Do you mean loading the film?  Loading film was an issue for me; the only reliable way I found to load the film was to insert the roll into the camera and only then remove the paper tab and unroll the leader.

I had great success hand holding and on a tripod, always using my hands and body weight to dampen the camera.  Here's a recent scan of an exposure in the danger zone around  1/15s.  Tripod mounted with body weight pressing down on the camera.  It's quite sharp.


Tom


IMG2112 by tsjanik47, on Flickr

[bcooter]

Is there somewhere that one can buy a new Pentax 67II?

If not online in the US, can it be found in Japan?

I'm not seeing much information on Ricoh's Japanese website, and I'm wondering whether they will release, soon or otherwise, a new version.

A few years ago I saw a few new ones at yodobashi in Tokyo.    It's not on their website, but I'm sure in Japan you could find one easily.

Really great cameras just tough to load, back in the polaroid days you had to dedicate one body to polaroid two bodies to keep film changed quickly.

The only real killer with the 1/30th sync with studio flash, but people that loved them, loved them people that loved 35mm but couldn't or wouldn't work a traditional medium format camera like a blad or an RZ tried them them sold them.

I loved them, owned an older set, then was going to buy the 2 version, but it just wasn't worth it.   It really wasn't the easiest camera to work fast just because of the film changing.

If they made on in digital I'd buy it today, but then I thought the mamiya 645 would be the digital version (it wasn't), though my leica s2 is the closest I can get to it.

Of course the pentax felt like it was made from old beer cans and recycled plastic, the Leica feels like it's made from a block of titanium.

Still, the pentax has more romance to it.

IMO

BC

[Codger]

I started with the second generation 67 and loved it.  I used it for a few years until I could find an excellent 67ii used on KEH.  In more than a dozen years I doubt I shot handheld more than five or six times --  those classic "up" shots through the aspens, mostly.  Mirror lock (always), cable or delayed release on 95% and my heavy-duty Gitzo, sometimes with my camera bag hanging from the hook.  Most shots made at f16, f22, or more, depending on the lens, for depth of field with hyperfocus.  Wonderful lenses optically, but slow.  Working with fixed ISOs, almost exclusively 100 speed, meant shooting landscapes in the breezy mountain west sometimes required long intervals between shots waiting for the wind to subside.  It was a dark day when I learned Fuji was no longer making 220 rolls for us: 120 requires changing too often.  Despite all this, the 67ii is what I use, still, exclusively.  I muse about having a "little" D800E and those dainty Nikkor lenses, along with multiple and high ISOs at any scene set-up, checking my shots as I take them, and not paying for drum scans --  BUT, I love what I get from my system: resolution and rendering.  Seeing my chromes on a lightbox is a rush. Shooting MF film is an anachronistic pursuit these days, but there are rewards.  If handling and changing film, and the delayed gratification can fit into your work flow, give it a try.  MF 67 can be a rich complement to APS-C or even full-frame digital.

[Rob C]

Rob,

Do you mean loading the film?  Loading film was an issue for me; the only reliable way I found to load the film was to insert the roll into the camera and only then remove the paper tab and unroll the leader.
Tom

No, I meant unloading, taking the film out of the camera. Neither operation was easy to do, but the unloading meant you could lose your work with the film falling out of your fingers, whereas if you lost it loading, that was just a film but no work.

Rob C

[Rob C]

1.  The only real killer with the 1/30th sync with studio flash, but people that loved them, loved them people that loved 35mm but couldn't or wouldn't work a traditional medium format camera like a blad or an RZ tried them them sold them.

2.  I loved them, owned an older set, then was going to buy the 2 version, but it just wasn't worth it.   It really wasn't the easiest camera to work fast just because of the film changing.

3.  Of course the pentax felt like it was made from old beer cans and recycled plastic, the Leica feels like it's made from a block of titanium.


BC

1.  By the time I bought the Pentax the flash synch. was okay for me because the camera was going to be used for shooting rooms etc. (as well as  Mediterranean 'atmospherics') and the shutter, when used with flash, was going to be mostly slower than that anyway - often down at about 1sec. or so. The model work days had pretty much passed for me by then, so no worries about that sort of balancing act...

2.  The Pentax film change was really a killer - as bad in its way as the 'automatic' self-loading crap system in the Nikon F4s that I had for a while and then sold for a new F3 that I'd thought had gone out of production but hadn't - they'd just stopped advertising it. That self-loader system had me blush too many times: it could take three attempts at closing the back, reopening again, reclosing etc. to get the mother to engage with the film and advance.

3.  You surprise me on that one: I thought the Pentax 67 ll was built as solidly as the Rock of Gibraltar - at least as well as my previous two 500 Series 'blads.

Rob C

[KevinA]

Well you couldn't rush the loading or unloading. It worked best for me with the camera in my lap in portrait orientation.
The slow loading was one of the factors I took into account when deciding to go digital. In a twin engined helicopter the downtime expense was not to be dismissed.
I found the 67 gave me more opportunity to crop sections than my Canons do, I thought nothing of using say the top right hand corner of a neg, not so with Canon L lenses, even stopped down I don't find the corners not nearly as good as the Pentax or other MF cameras. I tend not to crop the Canon shots.
Big solid lumps they are, not as reliable as the weight and bulk make you think they should be, the 67II I was forever having to bang on something to get the mirror to flip down, I've had all 3 go wrong on a flight twice, that's a real downer. Great camera all the same.
If I was in fight with a camera in my hand I know which one I would want it to be.

[Atina]

The Pentax 67 became the go to camera for a lot of aerial photographers. I had been through Hassy 500cm, Mamiya 645 and Rollei 600x. It was easily the best of the lot.
All the others struggled to hold the film flat and often had areas of vibration. Fast lenses and a fast'ish shutter speed gave sharp images, the big format was excellent.
 It's funny that in the air I used it because it lacked the vibration everything else had (Unless you used a Linhof and vacuum back) but on the ground it had the vibration reputation of a road drill or battery powered rabbit.
I would more often than not just use a portion of the image to fit a library request and quiet often it was 160 colour neg scanned at 4000dpi, no problem. Despite all the lab data to prove otherwise I like the images of scanned Portra more often than not, more than any digital I've seen.  Great camera I still have 3, they just gather dust now. Various Canon buy the bacon these days.

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!