Are the images you’ve scanned from film negatives really… yours?

And how is an image produced by the Frontier or the Noritsu scanner of a photo lab really more “yours” than an image totally reconstructed by an AI program such as ChatGPT?

We’ll try and answer this question in three successive blog entries – today, we’re looking at what a lab scanner really does. Next week, we’ll ask ChatGPT to “reconstruct” some of our technically weakest images and make them better. And finally, we’ll show that an AI general purpose program can’t compete with a 30 year old Frontier scanner.

I don’t scan my black-and-white film. Instead, I digitize it by photographing each negative with a digital camera, a macro lens and a “digitizing adapter“. It’s fast, and the only dedicated piece of equipment I need is a relatively cheap and low tech digitizing adapter (a film holder and a light source).

I tried applying the same workflow to color negatives, but getting the colors right proved far more challenging. Achieving consistently good results would probably require investing in a specialized Lightroom plugin such as https://www.negativelabpro.com.

Even for B&W images, with the same camera and film stock, my results often fall short of those produced by photographers who have their film scanned on a Frontier or Noritsu scanner at their favorite photo lab.

*The color film simply inverted, no color correction. There is long way from this raw image to a color-corrected picture.*

When I digitize conventional silver-halide black-and-white film, the main challenges are grain and low contrast. With color negatives, those are no longer the primary issues. Instead, once the negative has been inverted, getting the colors to look natural becomes the real issue.

*Atlanta, Cabbagetown, digitized and inverted at home – no color correction applied.*

Which brings two questions :

What exactly are Frontier and Noritsu scanners doing that my own film-digitizing workflow is not?

Could a general-purpose AI model such as ChatGPT or Claude apply to my digitized images the same optimizations performed by a Frontier or Noritsu scanner?

*Kodak Ultra 400 negative, scanned by a professional lab using Noritsu scanner (Koki EZ Controller).*

Fujifilm Frontier SP-3000 vs Noritsu HS-1800

The majority of the remaining pro photo labs scan the films of their clients on one of those two machines – in fact, most of them have both and let the client choose the one they prefer.

The Fujifilm Frontier SP-3000 is a product of the film era, dating back to the heyday of analog photography. The Noritsu, by contrast, is a more modern design that remains in production today. Both are high-resolution scanners, available with carriers for a variety of film formats, and can process up to 1,275 medium-resolution images per hour.

Far removed from the compact desktop film scanners available to consumers, Frontier and Noritsu scanners are imposing, desk-sized workstations. Built for professional photo labs, they are designed to be operated while seated, with the scanner, controls, and computer forming a single integrated system.

According to conventional wisdom, the Frontier is tuned to produce scans that look spectacular straight out of the scanner, particularly when printed on Fujifilm’s traditional photographic paper. The Noritsu, by contrast, is said to produce a more neutral file, giving photographers greater latitude for post-processing in applications such as Photoshop or Lightroom.

*Atlanta, Cabbagetown, digitized and inverted at home – the best I could get playing with the color channels in Lightroom*.

What are the Frontier and Noritsu scanner really doing?

The scanner’s interpretation of the negative typically involves :

Inverting the negative, removing the base orange mask of the color negative film, and eliminating scratches and dust, if present,
After the operator has selected the film type (Kodak Gold, Portra 400, Fujifilm 400, etc.), applying the vendor’s color science and corrections (tailored color matrices and tone curves),
Performing automatic white balance and color correction,
Increasing the contrast with tone mapping,
Analyzing the scene—and, on newer Noritsu scanners, recognizing faces—to optimize exposure and density for each frame,
Enhancing sharpness, increasing local contrast, reducing the appearance of film grain, and finally saving the image as a JPEG or TIFF.

And remember – those scanners are controlled by an operator, who may further adjust the settings, to correct an issue with an image, or to respect the preferences of a particular client.

As we can see, the so-called film look of an image produced by a Frontier or Noritsu scanner is as much a product of the scanner’s processing (and its operator’s skill) as it is of the camera and the film.

*Atlanta, Cabbagetown district – Scanned by a pro lab on Noritsu Koki EZ.*

By comparison, a negative digitized with a digital camera is more akin to a RAW file. It captures the information, but realizing its full potential requires careful post-processing in an application such as Lightroom before it can rival the output of a professional film scanner.

Why are color negatives so difficult to scan?

Inverting a B&W negative that you have digitized with a digital camera is easy. You simply flip the tone curve upside down (in a tool like Lightroom), adjust the black and white points, and it’s done. You can get the assistance of a Lightroom Classic plug-in like Negative Lab Pro, but in my experience, it’s not really necessary.

*Inverting a B&W digitized negative with Negative Lab Pro in Lightroom Classic – so easy you don’t really need a plug-in*

Inverting a color negative and get the colors right, one the other hand, is going to require hard work and persistence.

Because color negative film is not simply B&W film with an orange mask. It’s more akin to the superposition of three B&W layers, each sensitive to a different part of the color spectrum. The orange mask further shifts the relationship between the three color channels. Getting the colors right requires removing the effect of the orange mask and finding the right correction for each color channel. No mean feat.

Are there alternatives to Frontier and Noritsu scanners?

Yes, there are – but they involve some work. And only pay off once you’ve accumulated some experience. Take this snapshot taken with a single-use camera at a wedding, and processed by a local minilab, 25 years ago.

*Disposable Kodak camera – Scanned from a 4×6 print – Kodak Paper – Circa 2000*

The image was a typical amateur snapshot, with a blue-ish hue caused by the electronic flash of the camera.

The strip of negatives was stored with the prints in lab’s envelope. I digitized the corresponding negative with my Fujifilm X-T4 mirrorless camera and uploaded it in Lightroom CC.

*The Kodak color negative, digitized with a Fujifilm X-T4 mirrorless camera.*

After some trial and error, I managed to get this image in Lightroom CC:

*I inverted and adjusted the colors in Lightroom CC (no plug-in)*

I also imported the same digitized image in Lightroom Classic, downloaded Negative Lab Pro, and tried my luck. Negative Lab Pro is loaded with presets and options, and because I only spent a few minutes on the image, I could only get a very approximate and unsatisfactory image. If you adopt Negative Lab Pro, there will be a learning curve before you get color images you can be proud of.

*Negative Lab Pro in Lightroom – the number of options and pre-sets is staggering – with experience you should get much better results than what I got in a few minutes.*

I also tested what AI could do – ChatGPT has not been able to invert correctly any of the images I submitted – sometimes the colors were completely wrong, sometimes it had avoided the difficulty and replaced whole sections of the image with its own creation – a “highly plausible reconstruction” as it says. On the other hand, when I submitted an image already processed in Lightroom and simply asked ChatGPT to get the skin tones right, it did the job.

*Digitized with a Fujifilm mirrorless camera, inverted and color balanced in Adobe Lightroom CC, with final color corrections by ChatGPT.*

As a conclusion…

Beginning in the late 1990s, photo labs increasingly stopped making optical enlargements and instead scanned every negative they processed. Those scans were then used to drive the digital printers that produced customers’ 4×6 prints on traditional photographic paper.

Although the final print was still a genuine silver-halide photograph, the familiar film look was already being shaped by the Frontier or Noritsu scanner. Long before the image reached the printer, the scanner had interpreted the negative, applied its own color science, and enhanced the scan according to its proprietary algorithms.

Thirty years later, Frontier and Noritsu have come to define what photographers associate with the “film look”. They provide images of a tremendous quality, and at least for color negatives, getting comparable results in Lightroom (even with specialized plug-ins) will require hard work and experience.

As for the general purpose AI programs, they can not be trusted to reliably invert a digitized negative. For AI, it’s simply too tempting to reconstruct a totally new image and forget about your original picture. No such thing with a Frontier or Noritsu scanner – they may enhance your image, but the final product is still undoubtedly “yours”.

More about the Frontier and Noritsu scanners – on the blogs of two photo labs

Carmencita Film Lab blog: Frontier vs Noritsu

Optik-oldschool.com: Frontier vs Noritsu – why film scans look different – and how to get the best results.

Lab scanners at their best:

*Petra, Jordan – Nikon F501, Kodak Ektar 100, scanned by a pro lab using a Nortitsu Koki EZ Controller*

*Venice – Bridge on the Rio de Palazzo o de Canonica – Shot with Nikon FE2. Jan. 2012*

*Santa Fe, NM – Noritsu Koki EZ Controller*

Kodak Ektar H35 and the quest for the cheapest usable film camera

A few weeks ago I entered a Five Below store and bought their finest reusable film camera, for $7.00. It works, but it’s not better than a disposable camera. And after burning one roll of film, my conclusion was that a beginner to film photography would be better off spending a few dollars more, somewhere between $35.00 and $50.00, either on a new fix focus point and shoot like the Kodak M35 or the Ilford Sprite, or on a used autofocus compact zoom manufactured in the nineteen nineties.

*The Kodak Ektar H35 in its (optional) color coordinated case – the whole set looks much better than a disposable camera.*

I was curious, and started hunting for bargains on the site of Shopgoowill.com.

I found a nice copy of a the Kodak Ektar H35, a reusable, fix focus camera, with its coordinated Grapsa case. The camera sells new for $50; add $15.00 for the case; here, second hand, the starting price of the auction was $9.99, and after a fierce bidding war (just kidding), the H35 became mine for $16.00. Adding handling, shipping and taxes, the H35 cost me just a tad under $30.00.

The Ektar H35 is not made by Eastman Kodak, the name is used under license by Reto, a Hong-Kong based company. The big differentiator, ironically for a product proudly wearing the name of Kodak, is that being a half frame camera, it will save you money on film and processing, by giving you twice as many images on a standard roll of 35mm film.

*The shutter release button, and the ring surrounding the lens to turn the flash on. That’s it.*

The high cost of film and of film processing makes shooting 24x17mm frames very tempting, financially – and since most images are destined to be shared on the small screen of smartphones, the loss of resolution (compared to a full frame 36x24mm negative) is not a real issue.

The H35 is styled like an old Kodak Instamatic, and is technically almost as simple as its remote ancestor – the fix focus 22mm lens opens at f/9.5 (22mm on a half frame gives you the angle of view of a 35mm lens on a full frame camera), and the shutter operates at 1/100 sec. The electronic flash is brought in service by turning a ring around the lens. That’s it. Compared to a disposable or to the original Instamatic, it has a better lens (2 elements, optical grade acrylic), and contrarily to its Kodak predecessor, it’s using standard 35mm film (the Instamatic’s negatives were 28x28mm, from a “126” film pack).

*Two half frame cameras. The Pentax sells for 10 times the price of the Kodak*. *But there is a huge difference in Image Quality*.

For the record, there is new version of this camera, the Ektar H35N, where the lens has been upgraded to include one glass element, and one aspherical acrylic element.

The Ektar is a recent and extremely simple camera – with not much to go wrong – and I was not taking a big risk buying it on Shopgoodwill.

Comparing the images out of the camera (as shot)

*Somewhere in the North Highland neighborhood, Atlanta, GA – Kodak Ektar H35 Camera – Kentmere 400.*

From the same vantage point, the same day, with another half-frame camera, the Pentax 17

*Somewhere in the North Highland neighborhood, Atlanta, GA – Pentax 17 – Ilford Delta 400.*

Shooting with the Ektar 35H

In its coordinated green case, the H35 looks very good. Much better than expected for such a cheap product. The film advance and the shutter release are smooth. But don’t look too close, though – it’s plastic, plastic, plastic. The film rewind crank is filmsy and looks really fragile – how long will it last? The viewfinder (oriented vertically – it’s a half frame camera) looks like the viewfinder of a full frame 35mm camera where two black strips would have been glued left and right: it’s narrow, uninspiring, and makes it difficult to predict exactly what will be in the frame.

*Inman Park Neighborhood – Ford Pickup – Kodak Ektar H35, Kentmere 400*, *as shot*

In all honesty, I really had to make a conscious effort to use the Ektar. It did not come naturally to me, and whatever other camera I had with me that day saw more use than the little Kodak. And if I had no other camera, I still preferred taking the picture with my phone. I never enjoyed using disposable cameras, and the truth is I did not enjoy using the H35 either.

*Somewhere on the Atlanta Belt Line, Kodak Ektar H35, Kentmere 400* – *as shot.*

Image Quality

It took me months to finish a single roll of film, (48 frames on a 35mm roll sold for 24 “full frame” images, remember) and it stayed in my photo sling next to my “camera du jour” without seeing much use. But it gave me the opportunity to use it in parallel with a recent (and much more expensive) half frame camera, the Pentax 17, and with an older and generic point and shoot cameras of the turn of the century, the Argus M5600d.

The Pentax and the Argus are both larger, heavier, but much more interesting to use as cameras. But what about the image quality?

Looking at the B&W negatives shot with the Ektar, it’s obvious that there are huge differences in density from one image to another one – some are extremely dark, some are extremely clear, almost transparent – a consequence of the absence of any exposure control system in the camera. You have to rely on the exposure latitude of the film, on the image enhancing algorithms of the lab’s scanners, and on your ability to massage the picture in post-processing.

Comparing two half frame cameras:

*Lake Clara Meer and midtown skyline – Atlanta – Kodak Ektar H35 – Kentmere 4*00, as shot

and shot the same day from the same vantage point, with the Pentax 17:

*Lake Clara Meer and midtown skyline – Atlanta – Pentax 17 – Fujifilm Acros 2 100 ISO, as shot*

The B&W negatives were not scanned in the true sense of the word, they were simply digitized with a Fujifilm X-T4 equipped with a Micro-Nikkor 55mm lens and the JJC Digitizing Adapter, then imported and inverted in Lightroom with only adjustments to the S curve. The images labelled “as shot” did not benefit for any other enhancement, and represent what the camera is really capable of, before any software filter or any artificial intelligence trickery is applied.

The images are a mixed bag – this Ektar is clearly a sunny-16 type of camera, and the best pictures are taken on a bright day, middle of the morning and middle of the afternoon. Don’t use it for landscapes – even urban landscapes – it seems optimized for subjects in the 4 to 30ft zone and anything beyond that is blurry.

On the other hand, some images – close-ups, street scenes, statues, are “interesting”, and pictures of houses and front yards are generally nice. Go figure.

Even at its preferred focusing distance, the resolution is surprisingly poor – it’s closer to an Holga than to any decent autofocus film camera like the Argus M5600 and its clones. As long as you look at them on the relatively small display of a smartphone, the images look fine. But they rapidly reach their limits, and on an iPad or a 15in laptop display they will look fuzzy, lacking definition and contrast.

On a final note, I tried to use the flash multiple times, and not a single one of the images was even remotely acceptable.

Another comparison – here the Ektar….

*Avondale Estates, GA – Kodak Ektar H35 Camera – Kentmere 400, as shot*

Here, the Argus M5600d

Avondale Estates – Argus M5600d – Kentmere 400 – minor adjustments in Lightroom.

Conclusion

If you’ve read this blog entry that far, you have understood that the H35 is not for me. It may be cute, but it’s still extremely basic, not really better than a single-use, throw away camera.

I was really disappointed by the image quality: displayed on a smartphone, some images can be somehow “acceptable” without ever being great – while some are not even salvageable, except maybe by AI – but what’s the point, then. And on anything larger than a smartphone display, they will generally fare poorly.

To the camera’s defense, I did not shoot with color film, and did not have the film processed and scanned on the Noritsu or Frontier machines of a pro lab – their software apply all sorts of enhancements to the images before saving them as Jpegs, and I’m sure their pictures would look better.

*Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, GA – Kodak Ektar H35, Kentmere 400*, *as shot.*

In other words, it’s not a camera that will give me the type of images I like. But it may work for photographers with different styles and tastes.

Photography is at the same a craft, and an art. If you don’t really care for the “craft side” of this activity, but have a keen eye, good image composition skills, and like your images on the rough side, a fix focus camera like the Ektar, or even a toy camera like a Holga or a Diana may be a good fit – you’ll have to learn how to exploit their limitations and their flaws to create images reflecting your unique vision.

*Little Five Points, Atlanta – Kodak Ektar H35, Kentmere 400, as shot.*

Was I fair in my evaluation of this camera, and is the Ektar H35 that bad?

I believe I was fair. The Ektar was in my photo bag when I was shooting with the Pentax 17 and the Argus, and although I clearly preferred having those two cameras in my hands, I still made a point of shooting one or two images per scene with the Ektar.

The cameras were not all loaded with the same film stock (I was using Fujifilm Acros and Ilford Delta 400 on the Pentax, Kentmere 400 on the Argus and the Ektar), but all three are good films, and the Kentmere gave me results that positively surprised me with the Argus.

The two rolls of Kentmere 400 (the Argus’ and the Ektar’s) were developed together, in the same tank, with Ilford’s Ilfosol 3 at standard dilution, so a botched film processing routine can not be pinned as a cause for the relatively poor quality of the pictures.

I had a peek at the images of the Ektar user group in Flickr. The pictures generally look better than mine, but the images I posted here are as shot, not enhanced by the software of the Noritsu or Frontier scanners used by the photo labs, or by an AI tool. For the sake of the argument, I submitted two of my images to ChatGPT, and after a few adjustments in Lightroom, I got the images shown below. Better, but are they still “my” images, or something else entirely?

Enhanced by ChatGPT for sharpness and contrast, then adjusted with a mask on the young lady to correct under-exposure in Lightroom.

*Enhanced by Chatgpt for sharpness and contrast*

Argus M5600D – A generic long zoom “travel” compact film camera with an American household name

You may have read about my recent experiences with the Five Below Reusable Camera (bought in store, new, for $7.00), and my quest for something a bit better, but in the same price range.

What if I was looking for the cheapest possible option, a motorized, autofocus, long zoom compact film camera of the late nineteen nineties. In other words, something that nobody wants. Could it be a hidden gem?

*A Goko Camera product, sold under the Argus, Concord, Polaroid and Olympus Superzoom logos*

Locating a cheap and working copy of a motorized, autofocus, compact camera made at the end of the nineties is difficult. Autofocus, motorized compact cameras are significantly more complex than a fix focus reusable camera, and most of them did not age well, suffering from all sorts of issues with their electronics, and with the aging of the plastic parts used in the power zoom and in the film advance mechanisms.

The price I was willing to pay ruled out cameras from the big Japanese brands. I found an autofocus, motorized camera with a 38-115 zoom, that according to Shopgoodwill had passed some very basic tests, for $5.00. No bidding war for this one, but hefty handling and shipping fees brought the delivered price to $19.00.

*Argus M5600D – date back and dioptric correction in the viewfinder – a well spec’d camera.*

Its design easily qualifies as “bland”, but the camera is technically elaborate, for a compact point and shoot camera. Its specifications are in line with well considered “travel cameras” like the Olympus Stylus/Epic 115 or the Pentax Espio/IQZoom 115V.

This autofocus compact is branded “Argus”. This glorious American brand was bought in 1990 by a company named Concord Camera Corp, which was distributing generic cameras made in Asia, under the different labels it owned or licensed. Most cameras of the Concord group were very basic and mainly sold under a plastic blister in supermarkets and drugstores.

*the MacromaX product range in an Argraph catalog from 2004 – the M5600d is a clone of the Goko AZS1150*

This Argus M5600D was made in Malaysia in the Year 2000 by a major Japanese OEM named Goko Camera. It was virtually identical to Goko’s own MacromaX AZS 1150 AFQ, to Concord’s C3000 Super Macro, and to Polaroid’s 8500Z. More surprising, it looks like it’s almost the same camera as the Malaysia-made Olympus Superzoom 115 of 1999 – the only visible differences being the front fascia and the placement of one or two buttons. Olympus never acknowledged the lineage, but there is no doubt for me that this Superzoom 115 belongs to the MacromaX Z family of Goko cameras. (*)

The M5600D’s lens is proudly labeled Cintar Zoom Japan, with a 6 elements/5 groups design, and a maximum aperture varying between f/3.9 and f/10.8. The camera came equipped with a date back, and has dedicated buttons to control the flash modes, and force the focusing distance to the infinite or to 0.25m. Surprising for a compact camera – there is also a way to set a +1.5 EV exposure compensation.

The M5600D requires an easy to find CR123 disposable battery, and considering the slow aperture of the zoom, should be loaded with 400 ISO film.

So, on paper, this camera looks like a much better photography tool than a reusable fix focus point and shoot.

*The inside of the Argus M5600D is clean and the camera seems well built.*

First impressions

When I received the camera, I was pleasantly surprised. Not that it was in a very nice condition (film cameras of the early 2000s have often seen little use, having been rapidly eclipsed by digicams in the bag of amateur photographers), but that it seemed well built, with an apparent concern for maintainability. I inserted a new battery and a cartridge of Kodacolor 400 (film loading was automated, and easy) and I was ready to shoot.

In the absence of a user manual – which does not seem to ever have been made available as a PDF file – it’s difficult to know exactly what this camera is capable of, but for a point of shoot, it’s exceptionally configurable.

Shooting with the M5600D is a pleasant affair – the camera’s body is large enough without being too big or too heavy, the viewfinder is large and relatively luminous, and the camera responsive. Maybe the lens is horrible and the images are going to lack contrast and resolution, but at this stage, and after having burned two rolls of film, I don’t think that the M5600D is any worse (or any better) than the equivalent models from Olympus or Canon.

*Pentax 17 on the left: $499.00 – Argus M5600D on the right: $5.00*

The proof is in the pudding

I first loaded the camera with a roll of Kodacolor 400, but the lab (it will remain unnamed – I want to give them a second chance) took almost two months to process the negatives. I was getting impatient and then burned a second roll of film (Ilford’s Kentmere 400, a B&W stock I could develop at home).

*Marietta, GA – Argus M5600D – Kodacolor 400.*

A first glance at the developed negatives shows that all the frames of the film have been exposed (no accidental double exposure or blank images), and are regularly spaced. The B&W negatives are beautiful, the images seem correctly exposed and to the naked eye, they don’t look totally blurred or completely out of focus. This Argus is not a total lemon.

Let’s look at the scans.

They’re not bad at all. The exposure is not always perfect and the color scans are rather dull, but a few adjustments in Lightroom (vibrance, clarity) make them pop. Surprisingly, the lens is very good at resolving really fine details and the focus is right on, most of the time.

*Avondale Estates, July 4th – Argus M5600d – Kentmere 400.*

The macro mode is a mystery – pictures of flowers look horrible (the flash was on and if the subject is brightly lit, the background is totally dark) – but I shot a few close-up of cars and the images came up pretty good. As usual for this type of film camera, portraits shot at the light of the built in flash are bad enough to consign you to the dog house for a few days if you have asked your significant other to be your model.

You will have to be a pretty good photographer to win a photography contest with this Argus, but provided there is enough light and you shoot in exteriors, you’ll get very decent and perfectly usable images frequently enough.

*The Manchester Mill (Sweetwater Creek Park, GA) – Argus M5600D – Kentmere 400.*

As a conclusion – is it better than a “reusable” fix focus camera?

Yes, it’s definitely better than a fix focus camera (single use or reusable). There’s no comparison. The images of the M5600D will be correctly exposed, and its autofocus system will deliver much sharper pictures than a fix focus lens set on the hyperfocal. With a lens opening at f/4 at the wide end, it will operate in dimmer environments than a typical fix focus camera, and with a relatively long range of 115mm, its zoom will let the photographer isolate its subject.

Under a fair weather and in the bright hours of the day – it will give you surprisingly good images – but can not compete with a film SLR when the scene is not generously lit, or when shooting sports, or taking portraits in an interior, or macros of flowers, or in all situations when a good cobra flash or a direct control of the shutter speed and the aperture would be necessary.

Its performance envelope is much wider than a fix focus throw away camera, but also narrower than a single lens reflex camera and a set of good lenses. It belongs to this intermediate category which was nicknamed “travel or tourist cameras” for a reason.

*A Mercedes AMG – Argus M5600D – Kodacolor 400.*

I was honestly very surprised by the quality of the images delivered by this Argus M5600d. Unless you’re in love with the “Instamatic” look of the images taken with a single-use camera, a 25 year old motorized autofocus like this Argus is a much better choice.

It might have been a generic South East Asian beige camera, but it was a pretty good one, and I’m curious to compare it side by side with the best point and shoot cameras that Canon were proposing in the nineteen nineties.

Ultimately, the problem of the M5600D (and of all the fully automatic compact film cameras of similar design) is named digital photography. Anything that the M5600d does, a high-end smartphone or a recent digital camera will do better. The Argus has a good viewfinder and the ergonomics of a real camera, but it does not give you more control over your images than a smartphone, and contrarily to a nice mechanical camera, it is not a particular gratifying object to work with.

For $5.00, it’s an incredible bargain, and if you really love shooting film and don’t want to carry a single lens reflex, it’s a much better option than a single-use camera.

*The featured picture – the top plate of the Argus M5600D – the dedicated “macro” key is a Goko MacromaX differentiator.*

(*) Do not confuse the Olympus Superzoom 115 (the clone of the MacromaX AZS1150 and the Argus M5600d) with the Olympus MJU II or StylusEpic 115 (you recognize it by its clamshell body). The cameras have not much (if anything) in common.

For more about the Goko MacromaX series of cameras, and Goko in general – read Mike Eckman’s excellent review of the Goko MacromaX FR-350, and Goko’s “historic” pages: https://www.gokocamera.com/en/legacy-products/

The MacromaX cameras were primarily designed to be sold in developing countries, but were briefly sold in the US (1997 till early 2000s) under the Goko brand, and, badged as Concord, Argus or Polaroid, under labels belonging to Concord Camera Corp. Today Goko are still involved in photography, but have left the consumer market and specialize in cameras used in industrial or lab environments.

https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/GOKO_MacromaX_AZS_1150_AF

Olympus Superzoom 115 Quartz Date – a near clone of the Goko MacromaX 1150 AZS (source: eBay).

Compare with the pictures of the Argus M5600D – all members of the same big and happy family

The Manchester Mill – Sweetwater Creek Park – Argus M5600D – Kentmere 400 – shot at the longest position of the zoom (115mm)

*Jeep Wrangler YJ – Argus M5600d – Kentmere 400.*

Testing Buyee.jp – a (cheaper) eBay alternative to tap the Japanese second hand equipment market?

After years of gradual improvements, eBay has become a very reliable marketplace for buyers of second hand cameras and lenses. It’s been years since I’ve had an even moderately unpleasant experience with eBay.

But eBay is expensive – for the seller (the 13.6% eBay commission is calculated on the total cost of your purchase, shipping and taxes included – which brings it closer to 16% of the value of the sale for seller, in most cases), and as a consequence, for the buyer – because the sellers have to recoup their costs one way or another.

Until last year, a very good option to save money while remaining on eBay was to buy second hand photo equipment from stores located in Japan – the equipment was in very good shape, cheaper than in the US, and could be delivered on your doorsteps in two days – faster than if it had been shipped from the US territory by an American seller. I’ve done it often and never had any problem.

Unfortunately, the introduction of higher tariffs, the suppression of the de minimus exemption (purchases below $800.00 could previously enter the country duty-free), and the suspension of the two day delivery service to the US by the Japanese Post have completely changed the landscape, and buying from Japanese eBay stores has become seriously expensive. To the announced purchase price, you have to add the tariffs themselves, the fees collected by the customs agents (there and here), and the cost of shipping by a premium US carrier.

There does not seem to be a unique answer to those changes for the Japanese stores present on eBay – a few of them advertise an all-inclusive but higher selling price, while the majority keep the price of the item reasonable, but add massive shipping fees to cover the cost of new constraints – sometimes in the hundreds of dollars.

Japanese sellers still keep a big advantage over their American counterparts – a much wider inventory of “interesting” cameras. The Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) often gets the exclusivity of limited series or of specific camera body colors – and some brands with little traction in the US (like Pentax) are also better represented in their home market.

But not all Japanase vendors work with eBay. They can still be reached, and you can tap the seemingly unlimited inventory of the JDM, with the help of Buyee.jp, a proxy buying service.

What is a proxy buying service?

Unless you can read and somehow write Japanese (I don’t), it’s next to impossible to conduct a business transaction directly with a Japanese store. And assuming you do, how are you going to convince a little store in Kyoto or Osaka to go out of their way, take care of all the customs induced hassle, and ship the item you purchased to your end of the world? That’s where Buyee.jp can help:

they operate an English language Web site and offer an English language smartphone app that will let you browse multiple Japanese marketplaces – the search bar is accepting requests written in the latin alphabet, and the responses (in Japanese) are embedded in a Google Translate window, making it relatively easy to understand what’s being offered.
If you decide to purchase a product (or are the successful bidder in an auction), they will take care of completing the transaction on your behalf (you pay Buyee through PayPal), and will start the process of bringing the purchase to your door step: the seller has to ship the product to a local Buyee warehouse, Buyee takes care of packaging (if necessary), of customs and shipping.
Two weeks later, you finally receive the purchased item.

You’re glad Buyee have integrated a translation widget..

The item description is translated by Google. This Fujifilm Klasse is not as nice as hoped

Testing the Buyee service

I sold my Pentax K-5 II a few months ago, to fund the purchase of another camera, but I liked my K-5, and after a while I started feeling some sort of seller’s remorse. I started looking for the next step up in the K-5 family, the K-5 IIs, on eBay, and on Buyee.jp.

That week, there were were three K-5 IIs on the eBay US store, 1 located in the US, 2 located in Japan, with prices (incl. custom duties and shipping) ranging between $300 and $400.

On the Buyee app, I visited the JDirectItems Auction marketplace. There were 13 items for sale, all based in Japan, of course – and priced in Yen. The Buyee app does the conversion in US dollars automatically, which brought their K-5 IIs inside a range starting at $186 and topping at $410, customs duties and shipping not included.

I picked a model rated as “AB-” (the seller was describing it as “a little dirty” and was disclosing that the rear LCD was yellowing). Japanese sellers are generally very conservative in their assessments: judge for yourself from the pictures I took just after receiving the camera.

*A Japanese store’s idea of a “AB-” camera – “a little bit dirty”*…

I placed my bid at $208.00, and won. I had Buyee coupons to redeem (they seem to be very generous with their coupon allocation), and only had to pay $180 for the camera, through PayPal.

The timeline

6/14 – I paid for the item (to Buyee, with Paypal).

6/17 – Item arrived at Buyee.jp warehouse

6/17 – The buyer (me) was informed he had to go in the Buyee app and configure the shipping and packaging options.

There was only one option for shipping to the US: Fedex.

6/20 – After evaluating the packaging of the seller, Buyee decided that there was no need for extra packaging.

I confirmed that everything was OK for me, and Buyee established an invoice for its services: shipment, fees and tariffs and taxes, for a total of $72.00 to be paid through a second PayPal transaction. Which I did the same day.

6/23 – Fedex received the package

6/26 – The Item was delivered to my doorstep

… *with a yellowing rear display (it’s true that the left side of the screen has a yellowish hue – visible on the letters of the menus, but not when reviewing pictures*)

The financials

All in all, I paid $252.00 for this K-5IIs – I suspect a model in an equivalent condition would have cost me at least $300.00 on eBay (assuming I could find one) – so, there’s a net savings of at least $50 on a $250 purchase. That’s significant.

One of the limitations of the Buyee.jp process is that you don’t know the exact amount of the shipping fees and customs duties you will have to pay at the time when you place your bid. You know the exact amount one week after the purchase, when Buyee has received the equipment from the local vendor and worked with their customs agents.

In the case of this camera, the various shipping, handling and administrative fees did amount to $53 – I assume that they’re not proportional to the value of the item, but mainly to its weight. And that they should be more or less the same if I buy another camera or a lens in the future.

US Customs duties are more difficult to predict – and they’re subject to some political uncertainty – but as of June 2026: the exact amount depends on:

the country of origin of the equipment (the country where the final assembly took place, even if you buy from a Japanese store), and on
the exact classification of the equipment in the tables of the US Customs (I believe cameras are under code 9006.530.205).

This camera was made in the Philippines (Pentax assemble their cameras in Vietnam or in the Philippines), and according to the tables of the US Customs, should encur a 10 % tariff (which corresponds more or less to what I paid to Buyee).

Nikon D80 – the CCD-look at its best ?

The “CCD Sensor look” is all the rage nowadays, and after having resuscitated my old Canon Digital Elph SD400 (that still impressed me) and bought a Pentax *ist DS (that one was a disappointment), I was still curious, and eager to reunite with a camera equipped with what is considered the best APS-C CCD sensor ever, the Sony 10 Mpix ICX493AQA. This chip (or one of its a close relatives) was integrated in Nikon’s D200, D80, D40X, D60 and D3000, as well a few models from Pentax (the K10D, K200D and K2000/k-m) and Sony’s early Alpha series cameras (the A100, A200, A300 and their derivatives).

*Nikon D80 – the prototypical “enthusiast” dSLR*.

In this list, the Nikon D80 was the easy choice. To me, it was a known quantity, – a D80 had been my main camera for 8 years – I still have a few Nikon “screw-drive” autofocus prime lenses, and I like the ergonomics and the UI of Nikon’s middle of the range dSLRs. And good copies of the D80 are still abundant, and cheap.

I had briefly considered buying one of the “CCD” Pentax bodies, but they are all significantly more expensive than the D80 (surprising? a supply and demand thing, I presume), and are not known for the quality of their JPEGs (the “CCD look” is a JPEG thing and the Pentax JPEGs were lagging their competition).

*June 2026 – Nikon D80 – Nikon AF 24mm F/2.8 Lens – 200 ISO – the white cladding of the building is not burnt, and the colors pop.*

So, I bought a Nikon D80. And because the goal of this return to the D80 was to produce the most “CCD-like” images possible, I configured it with a Custom Picture profile featuring slightly increased sharpening and color saturation, combined with reduced tone compensation to keep contrast under control. I chose the Color Mode IIIa, fixed the white balance to Daylight, and applied a modest exposure compensation of –0.3 EV.

*Nikon D80 – a very comprehensive set of controls.*

The camera was set to record both JPEG and RAW files, with the JPEGs intended as the primary output and the RAW files kept as a safety net for any images that might benefit from additional processing.

*The original CCD Look: Rome (2008) – Nikon D80 – Tokina 12-24mm – 200 ISO*

Shooting with the D80 20 years after it was launched

When shooting stills (it does not record videos), the D80 is still perfectly usable – it’s reactive, and gets focus and exposure right, as long as there’s enough light – but not too much of it. And compared to modern mirrorless ILCs, it does not look too big – as long as it’s fitted with a small prime lens.

The ergonomics are good, the viewfinder is luminous and large enough, but a long list of limitations shows its 2006 roots:

The limited dynamic range – the control of the highlights is clearly the biggest challenge of this camera (and its sensor), and my camera is set with “highlight warning” as the default playback option. It is generally recommended to expose for the highlights, and – if necessary – to try and save the shadows in post production (starting from the RAW file).
A limited usable ISO range – 200 is the normal sensitivity, anything beyond 800 is only to be used in last resort.
No IBIS (in-body image stabilization)
The 3 points above combine to severely limit the performance of the D80 in low light and make the purchase of a good flash (a cobra with a big reflector) almost mandatory.
The small and poorly defined rear display (2.5in, 230,000 points) makes it difficult to judge quality of a picture before you’re back home and upload the SD Card to a PC.
None of the comforts of modern cameras: no Quick Menu, no Face Detection AF, no WiFi, no Bluetooth, no USB charging, no touch screen, no joystick.
And the usual limitation of the Nikon F system – no native APS-C (aka DX) prime lens except for a 35mm f/1.8, a 40mm f/2.8 macro and a 10mm fish-eye. Nikon never invested in a line of APS-dedicated prime lenses. It is particularly an issue on the wide angle side: you either have to shoot with a DX zoom, or with wide angle prime lenses designed for Full Frame cameras. Both tend to be big and expensive. And it also means that there is no “pancake-style” lens like the Fujifilm XF 18, 23 and 27mm, or Pentax DA Limited 21 or 40mm. Nikon have always expected their most “serious” photographers to shoot Full Frame, and not be too concerned with the size, weight or cost of their equipment.

*The original CCD Look – Rome 2008 – Nikon D80 – Quantaray 55-200 zoom – 200 IS*O

What about the images?

Within the limits of its sensor (limited dynamic range, tendency to burn the highlights and inability to deliver usable images above 1600 ISO), the Nikon D80 used to deliver very nice pictures, with beautiful skin tones and deep blues and greens. Nothing has changed today and the output of the camera is still very satisfying.

The Original CCD Look – Harbor of Essaouira – Morocco (2007) – Nikon D80 – Nikon 18-70 – 400 ISO – the sky is totally burned on the right of the picture, but the blue of the boats is beautifully rendered.

As far as the CCD-look is concerned, I’ve found my benchmark. Of course, a camera from 2006 comes with all sorts of limitations, and cameras a few years younger (like a Fujifilm X100 or a Pentax K-5) will be much more flexible and can be set to deliver images approaching the “CCD-Look”, without any of the limitations of the Nikon D80. That’s what I’m going to confirm in the coming weeks.

*Nikon D80 – the rear LCD display looks much nicer in this picture than in the reality (it’s small and not very defined).*

CCD-look or not, this D80 is nonetheless a very good choice, and a good introduction to conventional photography: Nikon build quality, full compatibility with almost any Nikon lens made since 1977, great ergonomics, great images, long battery life, in a relatively compact package, and for next to nothing. Two weeks after I had bought this nice little D80 for less than $80.00 (shipping and taxes included), I was still receiving offers from competing eBay stores, proposing equally nice D80s for as low as $65.00.

Why (specifically) a D80 and not a D40X or a D60 or a D3000?

In Nikon’s camera line up of the time, there were three levels: consumer, enthusiast or expert consumer, and professional. The D80 was the model dedicated to the “enthusiast-consumers”, that is to say photographers who wanted most of the features and most of the performance of a Nikon “Pro” camera, but did not need a tool capable of shooting 100 frames a day, every day, for five years, in the most demanding environments.

The D40X and its derivatives D60 and D3000 were clearly targeting the mass market, and were made smaller, lighter (and cheaper) than the D80 primarily by abandoning the compatibility with screw-drive autofocus lenses, and trading a pentaprism viewfinder for a pentamirror. The D40X was a very nice little camera in its own right, but 20 years later there is not much of a cost difference between a D40X and a D80 on the used equipment market, and a photographer interested in learning more about the technical side of photography will be better served by a D80.

More about the Nikon D80

The original review of the Nikon D80 in DPReview: https://www.dpreview.com/products/nikon/slrs/nikon_d80

A (recent) opinion about the Nikon D80: https://www.cameralabs.com/nikon-d80-retro-review/

All images in this series are JPEGS – with minimal adjustments in Lightroom (exposure and highlights, mainly)

*June 2026 –* *Nikon D80 – Nikon AF 24mm F/2.8 Lens – 200 ISO – a Jeep and its ducks – the colors pop.*

*June 2026 – Nikon D80 – Nikon AF 24mm F/2.8 Lens – 200 ISO – the Yarbrough House (built 1880)*

*June 2026 – Nikon D80 – Nikon AF 24mm F/2.8 Lens – 200 ISO – in the neighborhood.*

June 2026 – *Nikon D80 – Nikon AF 24mm f/2.8*

June 2026 – *Atlanta, Poncey-Highland neighborhood – Nikon D80 – Nikon AF 24mm f/2.8*

A few words about the Pentax K-3 III Monochrome

I recently had the opportunity to take a few pictures with a very nice, almost new, Pentax K-3 III Monochrome. Because I shoot regularly with a Pentax KP and like the Pentax “Limited” prime lenses, I was curious about the K-3 III – how much of an improvement was it over a camera of the previous generation like a KP or a K-5 II – and about Monochrome Digital – how different was it from shooting with a film camera loaded with Ilford’s or Kodak’s best?

The Pentax K-3 III Monochrome is essentially a “normal” Pentax K-3 III dSLR, but equipped with an imaging sensor deprived of the usual set of color filters (forming the so-called Bayer matrix) usually present in almost all other digital cameras. In the absence of the Bayer filters, the imaging sensor of the K-3 III Monochrome can’t capture any color related information, only luminance signals.

But a monochrome sensor will capture images with a better resolution and with less noise (for a same ISO sensitivity) than a comparable “Bayer Matrix” enabled sensor, because there is no mosaic of filters between the lens and the sensor to absorb some of the light, and no demosaicing algorithm to reduce the resolving power of the sensor.

“Monochrome” – One of the clues that it’s not a normal dSLR.

KP or K-3 III (the Bayer Matrix version)

The K-3 III Monochrome is in a category of its own – as far as I know, there isn’t another monochrome DSLR currently available on the market. That said, the Pentax K-3 III Monochrome is, in every other respect, a K-3 III fitted with a different sensor. As a result, many of the observations I make about the K-3 III Monochrome also apply to the standard Bayer-equipped, color-capable K-3 III.

Let’s start with the hard facts – the KP was launched in 2017 and discontinued in 2021, and the K-3 III (the “Bayer” version) was released in 2021. The K-3 III Monochrome joined the fray in 2023, and both K-3 III models were still available new as late as last year (all three models are only available on the second hand market now). Apart from the sensor, the K-3 III and the K-3 III Monochrome are virtually identical.

When Pentax were defining the specifications of the KP, they were not trying to propose a direct successor of the Pentax K-3 II which was reaching the end of its commercial life. The KP was deliberately deprived of features generally found in cameras targeting advanced amateurs and pros (like dual SD card slots) to leave room for a more elaborate (and more expensive) camera that would be launched a few years later, the K-3 III. Today, when compared to a K-3 III, the KP has therefore the double handicap of being at the same time older and not as well spec’d.

The KP and the K-3 III are clearly close relatives – with very similar size and weight, and a similar organization of the controls and commands. Even the sensors are not that different (a 24 Mpix of the 2017 generation for the KP vs a 25.7 Mpix from 2021 for the K-3 III).

*The body of the K-3 III Monochrome is entirely … monochrome*

That being said, the K-3 III (and the K-3 III Monochrome) represent a marked improvement over the KP – they have all the features – dual card slot, top plate LCD display and big battery – that enthusiast photographers expect.

And a larger optical viewfinder, with a higher enlargement factor (1.05 instead of 1.0), and a finer and more luminous mate screen. The KP’s viewfinder is very good in its own right, but visibly not as nice as the K-3 III’s, which is probably the best viewfinder gracing any APS-C dSLR camera. Ever.

The K-3 III’s ergonomics are better with a large handgrip and a more easily accessible front dial, but with a leather half case the KP becomes fairly acceptable, at least for me. The battery of the K-3 is larger (1860 mAh instead of 1040 mAh on the KP), but the battery life of the latter, while disappointing for a dSLR, is still in the realm of tolerable for an amateur shooting less than 350 frames per session.

*The user interface is well designed, but more complex that the Pentax KP’s*

The K-3 III is a more recent camera, and like its modern mirrorless competitors, has a touch enabled LCD display. The focusing point is selected with a joystick, and the K-3 III supports low power Bluetooth connections and in-camera USB-C charging.

Lastly, because I only had the opportunity of shooting with my usual screw-drive autofocus lenses, I can’t offer an opinion about the K-3’s autofocus ultimate performance. And the K-3 III being limited to monochrome images, I can’t comment on how the image processing engine of the K-3 III (“Bayer”) renders colors in the JPEGs it generates. Autofocus speed and JPEG quality are both reported to be improved over the KP by photographers who have used the K-3 III with lenses with an integrated autofocus motor.

To summarize, the K-3 III is a better camera in every metric, much closer – at least for stills photography – to the state of the art mirrorless APS-C cameras of the Big Four than the nine year old KP.

*An interior – shot at 1600 ISO – Pentax K-3 III Monochrome, Pentax 35mm f:2.4 AL*

The K-3 III beats the KP on performance, convenience and comfort. And it may very well be the most elaborate APS-C dSLR ever made (fighting for the crown with the Nikon D500). But would it help me deliver better pictures, more frequently?

I bought a Pentax KP last year because I felt that sometimes, I needed a break from mirrorless cameras – I wanted to reconnect with the pleasure of a good optical viewfinder and of a well thought (and simple) interface. That I like the colors of the images delivered by the KP when paired with Pentax’s “Limited” primes is a cherry on the cake.

When you shoot with a K-3 III, the changes over the KP seem more incremental than revolutionary. More “nice to have for an amateur like me” rather than “absolutely, definitively, have to have”.

*Rigid light on a Jeep Wrangler. Shot in a parking lot.* *200 ISO – Pentax K-3 III Monochrome, Pentax 35mm f:2.4 AL*

At the end of the day, it’s about choosing between Very Good and the Ultimate Best. There is no doubt that the K-3 III is a better camera. But for my use case and my style of images, the KP fits the bill. On the second hand market, a nice KP can be found for $600 when a K-3 III (the “Bayer” version) is going to cost at least $1400. A photographer heavily invested in the Pentax K system will be of a different opinion, but as far as I am concerned, I find it hard to justify paying that much for the incremental improvements brought by a K-3 III.

“Monochrome Digital” and B&W film photography

The Pentax K-3 III Monochrome is unique: there are very few cameras with monochrome sensors on the market – only Leica, Pentax and Ricoh have monochrome versions of some of their models, and only one is a digital SLR, the K-3 III.

I hardly shot a hundred of pictures with the K-3 III Monochrome. It does not make me an expert in digital monochrome photography, and I can’t offer a definitive opinion on this camera (I linked two good analysis of the K-3 III Mono at the bottom of this post).

*Foca Universal – shot at 1600 ISO – Pentax K-3 III Monochrome – Pentax 35mm Macro Limited*

But I learned at least one thing in the process: “Monochrome Digital” is not a way to shoot black and white pictures while saving money on B&W film. Monochrome Digital is a different type of medium altogether.

Images taken Straight Out of the Camera (SOC) are at the same time much smoother (no grain, with a larger dynamic range) and much more detailed than B&W film negatives, in particular in the shadows. Images are generally perfectly usable SOC, but are also more malleable and the photographer will be more frequently tempted to play with the tonal response (the S-Curve) than when shooting in color with a digital camera.

Taking advantage of a monochrome sensor will require a specific photographic style, and a specific post-processing workflow. There will be a learning curve before a photographer gets the images he or she can really be proud of. “Monochrome Digital” is definitely a commitment.

I tried to shoot a few urban landscapes, without much success (“it’s not the camera, it’s me…”) but I was impressed by the close-ups I took with a macro lens, and by pictures of interiors. In the right hands, this camera definitely has a huge potential.

*Pentax ME – shot at 1600 ISO – K-3 III Monochrome – Pentax 35mm Macro f:2.8 Limited*

When it was still available as a new camera a few months ago, the K-3 III Monochrome was selling for $200.00 more than the already very expensive K-3 III “Color”. Today, there are very few K-3 III Monochrome cameras available in the second hand market, most of them located in Japan. They typically sell between $1900 and $2300 once tariffs, fees and shipping costs have been added.

dSLRs are now relegated to a small niche, and a monochrome digital SLR is an extremely narrow niche within an already small niche. For a photographer seriously committed to digital monochrome photography, the K-3 III Monochrome is an interesting proposition, easier to use than a Leica M (it’s an autofocus dSLR) and more flexible than a Leica Q or a Ricoh GR (its lenses are interchangeable). But I don’t think I’m ready for it.

Other opinions about the Pentax K-3 III Monochrome

Andy Westlake in Amateur Photographer: “If you’re a Pentax user with a nice set of APS-C lenses, who loves shooting in black & white and has the money to spare, it’s an easy recommendation. It’s a fine camera that will repay you with superb results.” https://amateurphotographer.com/review/pentax-k-3-mark-iii-monochrome-review/

Keith Wee in his blog: “Like the Leica Monochrom cameras, the Pentax K-3 Mark III Monochrome removes the distraction of colour and replaces it with an immense tonal canvas” (https://keithwee.com/2025/12/10/a-first-impressions-review-of-the-pentax-k-3-mark-iii-monochrome/)

More recent content in CamerAgX

*The usual suspect – The neighborhood restaurant (yes, it used to be a Baptist church).* 200 ISO – *Pentax K-3 III Monochrome, Pentax 35mm f:2.4 AL*

*Cine-Kodak Eight-25 (Pentax K-3 III Monochrome, Pentax DA 35mm Macro f:2.8 Limited).*

*Max, French Bulldog (Pentax K-3 III Monochrome, Pentax DA 35mm f2.4 AL)*.

Pentax 17: a compact film camera like no other

I bought another compact film camera. Second hand, of course, you don’t change a winning formula. But not a vintage this time. This one was manufactured in 2024.

I had been intrigued by the recent proliferation of new “semi-premium” compact film cameras. In the $500 to $800 price range. Cameras like Mint’s re-interpretation of the Rollei 35, Lomo’s MC-A and Pentax’s 17. Three original designs, with not much in common, except for the use of a wide angle prime lens and of course, of 35mm film.

I had read the reviews, watched the Youtube videos. And I picked my champion. The Pentax 17. Because it’s different. Reviewers have compared Mint’s AF 35 to the classic Rollei 35 that inspired it, and the Lomo MC-A to the pinnacle of compact film cameras, the darling of the influencers, the Contax T2. Nobody has found a classic camera they could compare the Pentax 17 to.

*Pentax 17* – *note the zone focus icons on the bezel of lens – a mirror makes the selected icon visible in the viewfinder.*

This blog entry is not going to be another review of the Pentax 17. There are enough of them already. And on the whole, they’re positive. Reviewers generally approve of the lens and of the metering system. And when they complain, it’s because they were secretly longing for a modern Contax T2.

For those complainers, the lens and the exposure determination system of the P17 were wasted on a camera that offered the controls of a cheap toy. As if Leica had put their best glass or Nikon their best exposure metering system on a Holga.

The Pentax 17 was not designed to be a substitute to a manual focus SLR or to a rangefinder camera. The goal of its creators was to bring new people to film photography, and, eventually, to force seasoned photographers out of their zone of comfort. Let’s see how I adjust to it.

*Two images in a standard 36×24 frame – it makes digitizing a bit more challenging.*

The context

Pentax at its core is a single lens reflex company – starting with its name – which evokes the pentaprism of a SLR. Contrarily to Canon or Ricoh who came to SLRs after having sold rangefinder cameras in the nineteen fifties, Pentax had never designed or sold any camera that was not a SLR before they launched their first autofocus compact camera in 1982. And contrarily to Canon or Ricoh, they had never sold a half-frame camera either.

For their return to film, Pentax could have made a re-edition of one of their best programmed auto exposure, autofocus, motorized 24×36 cameras. An Espio Mini of sorts. The same, but built with modern electronic components and with a one year warranty. Demand would probably have kept their production lines buzzing.

*Pentax 17 – on the right side of the viewfinder the two “idiot lights” – the connector on the right is for the jack of the remote control*

They chose to start from a blank sheet instead, and targeted an audience with limited experience in “legacy”, conventional photography (that is to say, taking pictures with a stand alone, dedicated camera that consumes film). The Seventeen is something without any precedent in Pentax’s own history (or any other camera manufacturer for that matter). And it could not make everybody happy.

A few words about the specs

You have to consider the Pentax 17 from the point of view of a person who is new to film photography, and whose experience of image capture is often limited to the camera app of a smartphone, and to a few snapshots taken with a disposable camera.

For people aspiring to film photography, the cost of a roll of film, and the cost of having it processed are the first two hurdles to clear. Pentax elected to resurrect the “Half Frame” format – meaning that instead of an horizontal image of 36x24mm, the Pentax 17 captures a vertical image of 17x24mm. Twice as many images on the same roll of standard 24×36 film.

*Pentax 17 – note the unusual modes on the mode dial, and the presence of an exposure compensation dial.*

“Legacy” photographers know how to take care of the exposure, they master the magic exposure triangle (aperture-shutter speed-film sensitivity) and understand how the depth of field works.

“Creators” used to camera apps did not have to bother with any of that to get great images. Pentax have tried to simplify their task by tying the automatic exposure modes and focusing in interesting (and original) ways:

Focusing (moving the lens assembly) is motorized, in a sort of fly by wire arrangement.
Depending on the auto exposure mode selected by the photographer, focusing can be “automatic” or left to the responsibility of the photographer.
Pentax does not give a lot of information about the “Auto” mode. When the camera is set to “Auto”, it selects a narrow aperture (my guess is something varying between f/8 and f/16), and sets the focus to a point that maximizes the depth of field (another guess: 2.50m). Pentax deliberately don’t use the word “hyperfocal”, but that’s what it looks like. The focus ring is inoperative, but if there’s enough light, subjects located between 1m and the infinity should be reasonably in focus. In the “Auto” mode, the camera behaves more or less like a very nice fix focus point and shoot.
If the Program mode is selected, aperture will vary between f/3.5 and f/16, and the shutter speed between 4 sec and 1/350 sec.
A “Night” and a “Bokeh” modes can be selected to force the camera to use slow shutter speeds in the first case, or to operate at the widest aperture in the second case.
The built-in electronic flash is activated automatically in the Auto mode (of course), but the Program and the Night modes can be selected in either of two versions – one with the flash, one without.
In all exposure modes other than “Auto”, focusing is under the responsibility of the photographer, who will be guided by icons (mountain, group of people, …) or by a conventional distance scale. That’s the so-called zone-focus.

*Inman Park neighborhood, Atlanta. Pentax P17, Fujifilm Acros 2 film.*

The P17 does not offer conventional ways to determine the aperture or the shutter speed (no PASM selector, no aperture or shutter speed ring). What the Seventeen proposes, at best, are indirect ways to influence the aperture /shutter speed combination. Which may be great for beginners: Program if you want some control over the focus and the use of the flash, Bokeh, when you want the blurry backgrounds, Night and Bulb when you want long exposures, and Auto when you want to enjoy an event and not have to think too hard about any of the settings.

*Pentax 17 – it’s not really pocketable and it’s a bit larger than the typical compact-zoom of the 1990s.*

First photo stroll

Contrarily to those reviewers who expected Pentax to release a modern Nikon 28ti, I have no complaint about the appearance or the build quality of the camera – it has obviously been designed, manufactured and assembled with care, with components of quality. The top and base plate are in magnesium, the rings click discreetly when you rotate them, the film advance lever is smooth, the tactile experience is rewarding. The viewfinder is large with bright projected frame lines, and the lens is a glass triplet, treated with Pentax’s most recent “HD” coatings.

I’ve never set the P17 in its Auto, fix focus-emulator, mode. I don’t see the point. Most of my images were shot in the Program mode, a few in Bokeh and a handful with the flash on.

Shoot with the Pentax 17 in Program mode for a few minutes, and a few things immediately strike you:

The two LEDs in the viewfinder keep on flashing – it’s the camera telling you that you have left the lens cap in place, or forgotten to rearm the shutter, or that you should enable the electronic flash. After 60 minutes, the camera has trained you, and the warnings are far less frequent.
The viewfinder shows you an image oriented vertically. Of course you can rotate the camera 90 degrees left or right and compose an horizontal image, but the camera is designed to incite you to shoot as many vertical images as possible.
focusing is un-assisted: on a “normal” camera, you don’t have to think hard about the focus – the camera is either autofocus, or equipped with efficient focusing aids – a rangefinder, a focusing screen, a ring of micro-prisms, a split image telemeter. Here, nothing. You have to determine the focus on your own – with the sole assistance of a few icons. It’s not extremely difficult, but it’s a task you have to accomplish every time you’re facing a new scene.
On a typical photo stroll in the street or in a park, you rapidly take the habit of anticipating, adjusting the focus in advance… just in case what you see 50 ft ahead becomes an interesting scene when you get closer.

*the distance scales (in feet and in meters) under the lens, the zone focus icons above.*

Is it a keeper?

I don’t know if the camera reached its target audience – I only know that Ricoh-Pentax have no plan to follow up with another film camera at the moment.

Like Fujifilm, Ricoh (the corporation, not the team of enthusiasts who are developing new cameras) seem to be happy to have successfully transitioned out of film, and to have survived the contraction of the photography market during the COVID years. They don’t seem to have much appetite for the risks inherent to a return to the film business, that they had worked so hard to escape from.

The Pentax 17 is one of a kind in the current photography landscape. Not because it’s consuming film, but primarily because it involves the photographer differently. It’s a sort of unique combination of characteristics normally found on toy and fix focus cameras, with the build quality, the lens and the exposure determination system of a “serious” camera.

The photographer has no direct control of the aperture or the shutter speed, and only an approximative control of the focusing distance. The limited control over the aperture and the focusing distance naturally leads to simpler compositions, as the photographer cannot precisely manage the depth of field, or take advantage of the longer reach of a non-existent zoom to isolate the subject.

But it would be wrong to assume that the P17 is no different than an entry level film point and shoot – that you can get for $5.00 or less in garage sales. Point and shoot compact cameras are far less involving and could easily be replaced by a smartphone. And the fact is that they were.

The 17’s zone focusing forces the photographer to anticipate how the scene could develop and pre-set the focus accordingly. The camera encourages the photographer to frame vertically, and to pair the images in diptychs. And to use special effects modes like “bokeh” or “night”. To plan. To think. Beyond the pleasant tactile experience that shooting with the Seventeen offers, that’s where the fun resides.

Does it have a future in my photo bag? Definitely – because shooting with the Pentax 17 is a challenge, and an experience that no other camera, past or present, can totally emulate.

More about the Pentax 17 in those pages in a few weeks – after a few more rolls of film.

*Family reunion. The film rewind lever of the 17 is designed to remind old Pentaxians of the ME/MX series*

Why 17?

Along this page, I kept on calling the camera indifferently “17”, “P17” or “Seventeen”. But its official name is “Pentax 17”.

17, because the negative of a half frame camera is 17mm wide.

What’s to like?

It’s different – it’s not “another compact film camera”
It’s different – it has to be used it with intent.
The build quality
The visual and tactile experience
Half frame – twice as many frames for the same cost

What’s NOT to like?

It’s different – and its talent is wasted if you simply use it as a basic point and shoot compact camera, in Auto mode
The mode selector knob: too soft
The frame counter: too small
The half frame negatives – they’re small and require more care (processing, scanning) than larger negatives.

How Much?

The Pentax 17 is still on Pentax’s catalog, and available (new) from major photo retailers for $499. So far pricing has been very solid and nobody is discounting it (you get one or two free rolls of film with the camera, at best). Very few Seventeens are available on the second hand market. When they are, they sell from the high three-hundreds to the mid four-hundreds.

More about the p17

https://www.35mmc.com/17/06/2024/pentax-17-review/

https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/blogs/film-photography-blog/pentax-17-camera-review

https://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/pentax-17/introduction.html

The featured picture: *the film window is much smaller than usual, and in a vertical orientation. It’s a “half-frame” camera.* *Note the modern (and very efficient) film loading system.*

All b&W pictures below were shot on Fujifilm Acros 2 film, and digitized on a Fujifilm XT-4 body with a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 lens and the JJC digitizing adapter.

*My usual benchmark – the local Bartaco restaurant.*

*A Volvo. The zone focus was set on the right headlight. But without knowing the selected aperture and the exact focusing distance, depth of field is a wild guess.*

*Sweetwater Creek Park – With 100 ISO film and a grey weather, the lens was probably operating close to full aperture and did a very good job (you can even see the float at the end of the line).*

The $7.00, Five Below Reusable Photo camera and its $7.00 film cartridge

For the readers not familiar with the American retail landscape, Five Below is a chain of stores selling “stuff” (cosmetics, candies, gadgets, beach towels, electronics) for really cheap, like $5.00 and below. Not eveything is under $5.00 – the reusable, waterproof film camera, and the b&w film it needs are both priced over that symbolic mark, at $7.00. There is a cheaper version of the same camera. Selling for $5.00. But I elected to spend two extra dollars to get the waterproof variant. It’s the same camera, simply inserted in a transparent waterproof shell.

While I was at it, I decided to splurge and also bought two 10 frame cartridges of Five Below’s 100 ISO B&W film. 10 (yes, ten) frames for $7.00. One roll for the Five Below camera, the other for my benchmark, the Minolta AF-C – an autofocus camera from 1982.

Research on the Web and on ChatGPT did not return any useful information about this film, but $0.70 a frame for a Chinese film of unknown provenance, it’s not exactly a bargain when B&H will sell you a 36 frame cartridge of Ilford’s excellent FP4 for less than $12.00.

It looks like Five Below are applying the tried and tested Gillette pricing technique – sell the razor at cost, and make a comfortable profit on the blades.

*The Five Below waterproof film camera, next to the Minolta AF-C – loaded with the same film.*

The Five Below camera is obviously not an original design. A similar fix focus, 28mm point and shoot camera has been sold (or given away) under various brand names in the past. The camera is almost totally made of plastic, as I doubt that there are more than three metal parts in it. At best a spring in the shutter mechanism. And two small metal rods to keep the door of the waterproof case in place. And not a single part is made of glass.

The lens is a 28mm f/8 piece of plastic (probably a simple meniscus). The shutter is calibrated to deliver 1/100sec snapshots. And, contrarily to all disposable cameras, this one has no electronic flash.

The Five Below film cartridge next to Fujifilm’s Acros II – Note that the leader of the Five Below film is cut straight.

Strangely enough, it does not look as lightly built as most disposable, single use, cameras. Loading the camera with Five Below’s film is surprisingly easy. Maybe it’s thanks to the unusual shape of the film leader. It’s cut straight, when every other roll of 35mm film I’ve seen is tapered. What works well for the Five Below does not work for cameras that expect a tapered leader, like this Minolta AF-C – I had to cut the leader to give it the shape of a “normal” 135 film.

Developing the Five Below film

The only indication provided is that the film has to be processed in D76 chemistry. No other direction is provided. Considering the film is very likely a respooled / unbranded industrial or cinema-derived film, I decided to develop the film for a longer time than what a usual 100 ISO photography stock would require. With my usual Tetenal Parvofin tabs at the “economy” dilution, I opted for a development time of 6 minutes at 26∘𝐶.

The cartridge is made of two half shells of plastic that are clipped together. Opening the cartridge to extract the film does not require a cartridge opener – I simply pried it open with a screwdriver (in a changing bag, obviously).

*Five Below 100 ISO B&W – the empty film cartridge.*

Compared to my usual Ilford or Kodak film, I found the film more difficult to spool on the Paterson spirals – it seems that the film base is made of a clear and rigid type of plastic (probably PET) rather than the triacetate used by almost all 135 film manufacturers – which could explain that the film advance is so stiff on the Reusable, and that I got involuntary double exposures on the Minolta AF-C.

Once developed, the film does not show any marking – the manufacturer will remain unknown – but contrarily to what I was afraid of, the processed negatives look OK, in particular those shot with the Minolta AF-C, which are clearly more defined than the negatives of the Five Below Reusable.

Five Below Reusable – Five Below 100 ISO Film – Sweetwater Creek Park

Two pictures taken from the same vantage point at the same time – the photo taken with the Five Below Reusable is dull compared to the image taken with the Minolta.

The total length of the film strip is 19in 1/2 (49cm), but unless you load the camera in a dark room and only lose one exposure to the loading process, it will be difficult to get 10 exposures out of the roll of film (I got 7 on each of the cameras, but I could have probably squeezed 9 exposures out of them had I been less risk adverse).

I also lost one exposure in the middle of the roll shot with the Five Below camera (the shutter probably did not fire), and one to a partial and totally involuntary double exposure on the Minolta (which is a very reliable camera, normally). The unusual stiffness of the film may have caused it, but I suspect that the real reason is that the film had not been spooled regularly.

Five Below vs Minolta

The Minolta AF-C is a fine camera. The film advance is smooth, the viewfinder large and accurate, with a clearly defined projected frame, and the 35mm f/2.8 lens is true to the premium positioning of the camera when it was new. The auto-exposure system and the autofocus did their job and the negatives are correctly exposed and as sharp as the film permits them to be.

The Five Below Reusable Photo Camera fared better than I expected. The viewfinder is poorly implemented (it shows you the angle of view of a 40mm lens, when the lens is actually a 28mm), and the word “resistance” was invented to describe the film advance ratchet wheel. Not a pleasant experience, but you still get usable negatives in the end. The negatives lack density – which clearly points to under-exposure. The camera has no way – manual or automated – to adjust the shutter speed or the aperture to the luminosity of the day, and on the day I took the pictures, the weather was overcast. The negatives are also mushy, the lens is definitely not a champion of sharpness: the image quality is low without being unacceptable, but there is no light leak and the frames are evenly spaced on the film.

As a conclusion

The “Five Below Reusable Photo Camera” looks cool in its pale blue color, and the little lobsters are fun. It’s deprived of a flash, and will only be usable outdoors, by good weather. On the beach, or practicing water sports. If you lose it or drown it, no big deal – you’ve only lost $7.00. Some of the issues I observed – the very stiff film advance, in particular, were probably caused by the film, and are not to be blamed on the camera.

I have no idea of the life expectancy of the camera – you will certainly be tired of it before it gets tired of you. Kodak, Ilford, Yashica and a few other propose much nicer reusable cameras (with a flash) for approximately $50.00, and a patient buyer will be able to score a very good motorized, autofocus compact zoom camera made in the nineteen nineties by Canon, Minolta, Nikon or Pentax for less than $35.00 (shipping and handling included) on their favorite auction site.

Lightroom settings with Five Below 100 ISO film

Left – the Five Below 100 ISO film reacts like “normal” B&W film – Right – there are better low budget options that this Five Below camera

The resulting images will be much better, and the price difference between the different models of cameras becomes negligible once you start considering that a photo lab will charge you many times the price of the Five Below camera to simply develop your first film and print 10 images.

As for the Five Below B&W 100 ISO film, in a good camera, it will deliver images which are not bad at all, with decent sharpness and contrast. There is no light leak, no dust, and all images are usable. But I can’t recommend it.

The PET base, those short 49cm strips, the absence of any film marking or processing direction, the straight cut leader, the same clipsable plastic film cartridges used by photographers spooling (not very well) their film at home, everything points to a low budget scrap recycling project. For the same price you can get a 36 frame roll of Ilford’s Kentmere 100. As such, this Five Below film is massively, obscenely, terminally overpriced. To be avoided.

The Five Below Waterproof case and the camera that goes inside. The pictures of this blog post were taken with the camera out of the waterproof shell – no need to add another layer of plastic between the scene and the film.

More recent content in CamerAgX

*Minolta AF-C – Five Below 100 ISO – Sweetwater Creek Park*

Blog Entry 200

I can’t believe I’ve already published 200 entries in this blog. And even more unbelievable, that those pages have been viewed (and I hope read) more than half a million times. To all, thank you for your patience with me and my ramblings.

When I was younger, I used to write for a paycheck. In the French IT press. And I hated the deadlines. I was always procrastinating, and as a result was spending the night before each deadline, writing. I don’t know why writing was such a pain for me at that time. I liked the “before” – collecting the information, testing, comparing, analyzing -, I liked the “after” (reading the finished article, first on my computer, then in the published magazines), but I did not especially like the “writing” phase at the center of the whole process.

It was stressful. First, there was the pressure of the deadline. Second, being vague, inaccurate or factually wrong was not an option.

In the times of paper magazines, publishing an article was a serious business. Readers were paying for their copies of the magazines, and they expected accuracy. There were tens of thousands of regular readers. And millions of French Francs of advertising money at stake. You worked hard to be sure that what you were writing was accurate, and you checked your facts twice – because nothing was worse than being proven wrong by a reader, or by the company distributing the product you had just tested. Because if you had it wrong, you had to publish a correction in the next issue. The walk of shame.

Now, I write for pleasure. Primarily about old or niche products. No paycheck, no deadline. No editor to respond to. No pressure. And I enjoy the whole thing. The research, the tests, the fact checking, the development of ideas, and the writing itself. And the interaction with you, readers and fellow bloggers.

It’s much easier (and immediate) to interact with you than it was in the times of the “letters to the editor” in monthly magazines. And although I still try to be thorough, if I get something wrong, you’ll let me know in the comments, and I’ll fix it. Not a huge issue.

In the ocean of negativity and hate that some portions of the Internet have become, I’m grateful that the comments section of this blog has remained an island of civility.

So, thank you again. Meet you again in a few days for Blog Entry #201.

*The blog entry ranking – Tokina 28-70 f/2.8, Fujica screw mount SLRs, Angenieux 28-70 – it pays to propose content that can not be found anywhere else.*

One of the oldest pictures of this blog is featured at the top of this entry (Charleston, SC – April 2009 – shot on film, probably with a Nikon FM).

This one is one of the most recent. Digital, shot with the camera most likely to be in my bags when I travel, the Olympus Tough TG-5.

*(Long Beach, CA – April 2026 – Olympus TG-5)*

Why Dec 4th, 2024? I had published a review of the Olympus TG-4 the day before.
Chattahoochee National Recreation Area – the bamboo forest – Olympus TG-4

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The never ending story of the Pentax KP’s interchangeable hand grip

There is much to like in the Pentax KP – it’s a well spec’d, well designed, compact and solid APS-C dSLR, and when paired with the best of the Pentax “Limited” primes, it will deliver really beautiful pictures. One of its unique selling propositions was that the handgrip gracing the right side of the body was removable, and could be had in three different sizes, small, medium and large. Like a Starbucks latte. Most KPs came with the small grip, which, in my experience, made this relatively heavy camera (700g before you mount a lens on it), extremely uncomfortable to hold and shoot with. For more ranting about the small grip, you can read the first part of my review of the Pentax KP in an earlier blog post.

I bought my KP sight-unseen as part of a lot which also included a 35mm prime lens, a Pentax branded sling bag, and the Pentax D-BG7 battery grip. Unfortunately it came with the small hand grip in place, and after a few minutes, I already knew that I had to do something about it.

How the grips are mounted on the body (here, the large grip)

Because I had always used my Fujifilm digital cameras with a half case in place, I expected that doing the same with the KP would make the camera more pleasant to shoot with. And it did. I located a leather half case on AliExpress, and received it a few days after placing the order.

*Pentax KP with the small grip and the AliExpress leather half case*

But I was still curious about the Pentax native solution. I started looking for information about the “large” handgrip. Based on the little tidbits I could find, I came to hope that it would be a better fit for me than the small one. But if factual information about the large battery grip was scarce, the grip itself (Model O-GP1762 in Pentax’s back catalog) was even more difficult to locate.

After a few failed attempts, I finally bought it second hand from a Japanese online store. Once tariffs, custom fees and FedEx shipping were added to the asking price, my used large grip cost me more than $100.00 – a lot of money for a mere hand grip. But a sacrifice I had to make if I wanted to publish today my totally original, totally fresh and totally AI free detailed review of the Pentax O-GP1762 hand grip.

Comparing the small and the large grip

The grips are of similar quality, and are mounted on the camera the same way. Their height and width are roughly identical. What makes the difference, of course, is the depth, and where the extra depth is located.

The small grip is 2.1cm deep, and when mounted on the camera, the total depth (camera+grip) is 4.9cm

The large grip is 3.1cm deep, and when mounted on the camera, the total depth (camera+grip) is 6.1cm

1.2 cm equates to 3/8in – not much of a difference if you just consider the figures, but the two grips are not shaped identically, and provide a different user experience.

The “AliExpress” leather Half Case

AliExpress is just the marketplace. Not the manufacturer. It’s made by a company in Shenzen. And I don’t know if the half case is really made of leather. Probably not. But for lack of another way to describe it, we’ll call it the “AliExpress Leather Half Case“

It’s well designed and well made. It is available in many colors – this one is black, obviously, and it complements the KP very well.

The user experience

The fact that the camera is so much more comfortable to use with the battery grip in place (irrespective of the hand grip installed on the camera), points to the real issue with the KP’s design: the body of the camera is simply not high enough, and would have benefited from being half an inch higher (1.25cm).

Without the battery grip, the “Small” hand grip is far too small, and the “Large” hand grip hardly large enough.

The small grip forces the photographer to pinch the right side of the camera between their thumb and their three longest fingers (no room for the pinkie), and it requires a significant effort to simply keep the KP steady. You can’t hold the camera with the right hand only and reach the control wheels or the shutter release. It imposes a two hand operation, all the time.

With the large grip in place, holding the camera with one hand for more than a few seconds becomes possible. It’s also easier to reach the rear control wheel and the shutter release, because you have a much better … grip on the camera. I would have liked the large grip to be just a tad bigger to give my fingers a little more space. But following my old habit of taking a loop of the neck strap around my wrist steadies the camera when I walk around my subject looking for the right angle, and operating the KP with one hand becomes a possibility.

The “AliExpress” leather half case has to be paired with the small hand grip. But if the large hand grip is an improvement over the small one, the half case is an improvement over the large grip. It adds volume where it’s needed the most – at the bottom of the camera, and the leather is more pleasant to the fingers holding the camera than the metal of the base plate. A great combination, in particular if you shoot with small prime lenses.

With the battery grip in place, the camera becomes really pleasant to use. Paired with the small grip, the set looks a bit weird, but it’s perfectly usable. The large grip and the battery grip were designed to be used together – they’re a perfect fit, and if it did not make the camera so big, it’s how I would configure mine all the time.

Small grip and battery grip – a usable, but not really compact set up.

Small grip and battery grip – compare with the same picture taken with the large grip in place.

As a conclusion

dSLRs have become a niche in the market of digital image capture devices. And Pentax a niche within a niche. And the KP, well, a niche within a niche within a niche. Pentax have to be deliberately “different” if they want to have a chance to survive, and the KP was an attempt at proposing a “different” dSLR. The retro-inspired design and the interchangeable handgrips were supposed to be big differentiators, but were probably the answers to two questions nobody had really asked. In the end, the KP’s niche within the niche within the niche proved too small even for Pentax, and the KP had no successor.

Don’t get me wrong – the Pentax KP is a very likable camera (you can check the second part of my review), and it’s the one I use the most at the moment. I like its optical viewfinder, its third control wheel and the way the images are rendered with some of Pentax’s “Limited” prime lenses.

If you’re on the hunt for a second hand Pentax KP, and if money is no object, I would suggest that you try and find one already fitted with the large handgrip and the battery grip. It’s by far the best combination in terms of ergonomics, even if makes the combo a bit bulky. With the battery grip and the large hand-grip in place, the KP is definitely very pleasant to use, and when you need the camera to be more compact, you only have to detach the battery grip.

The second best option is to buy the body with the small handgrip, and order this leather half case from AliExpress. It’s a cheaper but perfectly valid solution to the KP’s small grip issue.

As for the “Large Handgrip” on its own, it’s very difficult to find, seriously expensive, and unless you pair it with the battery grip, it does not bring that much of an improvement in usability over the small grip.

Other grips options for the committed Pentax collector

In Japan only, Pentax released two J Limited variants of the KP, the Black and Gold, and the Dark Night Navy. Both came with a very large wooden hand grip, manufactured by Mirako Techno Wood, and finished respectively in red, and black. More about this unique offering in https://www.pentaxforums.com/articles/pentax-news/pentax-kp-j-limited-announced.html.

Both KP models command really high dollar on the collector market now (and the wooden hand grips were never sold separately from the J Limited bodies, as far as I know).

Pentax KP J Limited Black and Gold (source: eBay.com)

Buying in China or in Japan through AliExpress or eBay in the times of tariffs.

eBay and the Japanese camera retailers were relatively quick to adjust to this new world of tariffs. There is not much of a difference in the user experience – and your purchase is delivered at your door step almost as quickly as before (three to seven days). All the administrative complexity is hidden from the buyer, but at a cost. Between the tariffs themselves, the customs processing fees of multiple intermediaries, and the fact that Japanese sellers won’t ship with the postal service anymore and have to rely on more expensive carriers such as FedEx, you end up paying 20% to 30% more than before for the same piece of equipment.

I bought the leather half case from a Chinese seller through AliExpress – the user experience was as seamless as eBay’s. As for the impact of the tariffs on the cost of the case – I had paid $17.00 to eBay.com for a very similar half case two years ago. To be compared with the $54.99 I paid this time for the KP’s on AliExpress (and eBay was even more expensive).

The tariffs have not made buying from foreign sellers more difficult for the buyer – they’ve just made the process significantly more expensive.