The Pentax

"This will be good for now until you can afford something better."

Round about 1990, I was in my first year of college. I wanted to be a Technical Director for theatre and needed to build a portfolio. My grandfather pulled out a brown leather satchel that I knew contained his Pentax Spotmatic camera. It was the camera he used my entire life. It had been to every continent and produced 100s of slides of far away adventures in distant lands.

Asahi Pentax 35mm Film Camera. Photo credit www.pentaxforums.com

I felt like Luke Skywalker being handed his father's lightsaber.

He went over the basics of the camera. I didn't retain much. I was just comfortable in the fact that when the needle in the light meter was in the center, you could take a photo.

That statement I've thought about a lot over the years. That I would eventually be able to afford a better camera and want to use that.

I did.

Kind of.

My inherited camera was stolen. There had been no sign of breaking and entering but my apartment had been emptied out. Including the Spotmatic . I had always meant to get more into photography but never had. I got a digital camera with the settlement money from the apartment complex.

A good camera for the early days of digital. It wasn't better. But man it was easier. I began taking what I considered beautiful photos with it.

Then I upgraded to better digital with a top of the line DSLR. Then back to film. Then back to digital. Then to film again.

I was pretty obsessed. Then, during the pandemic, photography all but died out in my life.

Three years after the pandemic, I did a lot of thinking, searching, procrastinating, more thinking. I don't want the crisp photoshopped of digital. I want to stick with film. I want to pursue more being an artist than a photographer. I longed for one camera I could do anything I wanted to with, and I wanted to stick with it this time. For a long time.

I realized, after too much deliberating and contemplating, there can be only one camera for me. It's always been something I coveted but, for some reason, skirted around and never bought. But it's always been the one.

The pentax 67 is big. Really big. Then again, I'm well over six feet tall and one more beer and pizza night away from weighing 300 pounds. So it looks like the right size for me.

And it's heavy. Runs about 4 to 5 lbs. or heavier, depending on the lens. That doesn't mean much in words. Next time your in the supermarket, grab a 5 lb bag of rice or something and think, man, that dude's lumbering around in the desert taking pictures with a camera that weighs this much.

But it feels good and is amazing to use. From the oversized knobs that make me feel like a kid playing with a really cool toy to the monster film advance lever to move monster frames of film.

One monster roll of Kodak's finest 120 Film

Loading film is a pain. You would think big rolls of film would be easier in the back of a big camera but, no matter what camera you use, your always figuring out something. So I'm rolling with it and getting better

Getting it out is hard too.

Best of all, it feels and runs like a big Spotmatic. I've got the needle I keep in the center to know it will get the shot, but, more importantly, from a technical standpoint, I have the best Asahi Pentax Takumar Lenses from 1969. Same type right down to the fluted design for the focus ring. Kind of feels like focusing with a big Greek temple column.

They are not the sharpest lenses in the world, but shoot right with them, and they have a 3D look I can get from nothing else. Packing up my gear and heading to the countryside just feels right with this setup.

I researched film labs and film and shot and shot for months. the most compelling photograph I created in my life in the Sonoran Desert, one of the most unique places in the world....

....was of this squirrel peering in the window letting me know it's time to refill the bird feeder.

I seem to be a bit rusty but I'm enthusiastic again and just warming up.

The Pentax is my brush, next I need my paint medium. It's good to use one camera and one type of film for a long time.

Time to start playing with different types of film. Next week, let's head out to the desert and see if we can find some magic that looks as good as the Pentax feels to use. See you next time right here on Fistful of Film!

Tune in next week for 120 Film Shootout, right here on Fistful of Film!