Having eliminated the Norita, I considered the Pentax 6×7.  Should I buy one of these instead of a Pentacon Six?

A news item in the UK publication “Amateur Photographer” in the late 1960s indicated that the famous Japanese 35mm SLR manufacturer Pentax was to make a medium format 6x6 camera based on the Pentacon Six.  This turned out in fact to be the Pentax 6×7, which produced 10 exposures 55mm x 70mm on 120 film (or 20 on 220 film).  It was hailed by the manufacturers as the “ideal format” for magazine pictures, as they claimed that most 6×6 images were cropped in order to fill magazine pages.  Their literature stated that although the image size was only 21% larger than a full 6×6, once the 6×6 image had been cropped to a vertical format, the Pentax 6×7 original was in fact 50% bigger than it.

The bodies

The first impression when one picks up a Pentax 6×7 is that it is big and heavy – much bigger and heavier than the Pentacon Six.
 

Picture reproduced from Pentax publicity published in 1976 for the German market

The Pentax 6×7 with the plain (non-metering) prism. Note the slot (arrowed) in the shutter speed dial in which a pin from the metering prism located, in order to transfer to the meter the information on the shutter speed that has been selected . If only Pentacon had thought to do this!  Pentacon Six lens mount users had to wait for the Exakta 66 for the camera’s shutter speed to be coupled with the TTL meter, and when it came, Exakta chose a more sophisticated electronic coupling.

The Pentax 6×7 has an electronic shutter and is totally battery dependent – if the battery fails, the camera is dead – and battery consumption is reported to be high!  The shutter is also very noisy – not suitable for wildlife shots.  The shutter speed range is the same as on the Pentacon Six: B, 1 sec – 1/1000 plus X.  Flash sync is 1/30 second – the sync speed for which the Pentacon Six was condemned by many reviewers!  However, the camera with a basic, non-metering prism was loved by some fashion photographers aiming at dynamic shots with a hand-held camera, and magazine editors loved the format.

The large mirror also causes a lot of vibration (and presumably a fair proportion of the noise) at the end of its travel (just as the shutter fires!).  A subsequent “Amateur Photographer” review (on 23rd January 1999) said that this “will cause camera shake at speeds which you would normally consider handholdable”.  Towards the end of the 1970s a mirror lock up was added to the camera.  This enables vibration to die down before releasing the shutter – fine for macro, architectural and still-life shots, but of no use for hand-held shots or anything that moves.

Like the Norita, and unlike the Pentacon Six, it has an instant-return mirror.

There is no delayed action lever.

The viewfinders

The basic body does not have a pentaprism, but in practice the camera is designed for use with one – it is difficult verging on the impossible to use the camera for vertical images without one.  Many models were sold with a plain prism, although a fully-coupled TTL metering prism was available.  This is an improvement on the Pentacon Six non-coupled prism.
 

A waist level finder and a magnifying head were also available.  These might, in particular, be useful for macro or studio work, not the hand-held action shots for which the Pentax 6×7 was principally designed. The folding “waist level” finder is on the left.  This contains a 1.6x magnifier. The magnifying head is on the right.  It has a 1.3× magnifier, and dioptric adjustment.

The lenses

With their wide experience of lens design for their 35mm SLR cameras, Pentax were able to produce an extremely impressive range of lenses for the new format:
 

(1) As the frame size and image diagonal are larger than in the 6×6 format, the angle of view is slightly wider, too.  To compare with the angle of view on 6×6 format lenses, click here.
(2) UV, Y2, O2 and R2 built in
(3) Macro lens
(4) The Pentax 6×7 may have been aimed at the dynamic user taking hand-held action shots, but no-one will be hand-holding these lenses!  Even carrying them from the car might be a problem!  The 800mm lens makes Carl Zeiss Jena's 1000mm Mirror lens seem light by comparison.  I suspect that some of these lenses were only made to order, and no doubt had prices in U.S. dollars close to the weight in grams!
(5) Y2, R2 and ND built in

In addition – rather like with the Norita – a lens with built-in leaf shutter was offered.  This enabled flash sync at all speeds.  Details are as follows:
 

(By the 1990s, the 90mm leaf shutter lens had been withdrawn, and replaced with a much longer focal length 165mm f/4 leaf shutter lens.)

All of the lenses have Pentax’s SMC multi-coating.

Other lenses have been added over the years.

Inspired no doubt by the 1930s 35mm Contax rangefinder cameras (which had in turn been copied by Nikon in the 1950s), the Pentax 6×7 had two lens mounts: a smaller one for the shorter lenses, and outside it a larger mount for the much heavier lenses.

The accessories

An extremely wide range of accessories were produced for the Pentax 6×7.  In 1976 the following items were listed:

• A 2× converter for lenses from 400mm and longer
• A magnifying eyepiece for the pentaprism
• Two sets of extension tubes – one for each of the bayonet mounts
• A focussing tube
• A 67mm reversing ring
• Bellows
• Slide copier bellows
• An angle finder for the prism
• An adapter to use 6×7 lenses on Pentax 35mm SLRs
• A camera grip and a lens fast focussing grip (inspired, no doubt, by Hasselblad)

My decision

The Pentax 6×7 system was impressive.  Yet I took the decision not to buy into it.  My reasons were:

• Its bulky size and weight
• Its total dependence on batteries.
• Its noisy shutter.
• The vibrations caused by the mirror
• The extremely high cost of the camera, lenses and accessories.

To go back to the introduction to the cameras, click here.

To return to the section on the pentaprisms, click here.

To return to the interview with the author, click here.

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© TRA November 2005, February 2007