Kodak Portra 160 and the Pentax 17
Chris Feola
Author, Perfecting Equilibrium: For a brief, shining moment Web1 democratized data. Then Web2 came along and made George Orwell look like an optimist. Now Web3 is Perfecting John Nash’s Information Equilibrium.
I shot a roll of Portra 160, Kodak’s flagship color negative film, with the Pentax 17 half-frame 35mm film camera. This film did pretty well, me thinks! Take a look and see for yourself.
The camera is named for the 17mm width of a half-frame of 35mm film, following in the Pentax tradition of naming cameras after their format, such as the 67, 645 and Auto 110. It features a newly-developed 25mm F3.5 lens, which is the equivalent to a 37mm lens on full-frame 35mm. The lens, which uses three elements in three groups, is based on the optical design of the Pentax Espio Mini while using the angle of view and focal length of the Ricoh Auto Half camera. Pentax improved on these classic designs by treating the lens with its modern HD (High Definition) coating to optimize the clarity and sharpness of the half-frame photos.