What’s not the weirdest thing about the Pentax is that it’s the first 35mm film camera to enter the market in decades. It’s that Pentax chose to make it a half-frame camera, meaning that it takes two 17mm x 24mm pictures within a single 35mm (36mm x 24mm) frame.

And it takes them vertically. And that’s, well, pretty goddamn strange.

Pentax 17 (opens in a new window)

vertically minded

You know that person who takes pictures on their phone but doesn’t turn it sideways? The Pentax 17 does that. You’re not exactly locked into taking vertical pictures, since you could turn the camera itself 90 degrees, but who wants to shoot like that all the time?

The Pentax 17 is for you if you can get comfortable with the funky shot layout. There’s no way to force it to take full, horizontal 35mm pictur

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