Pentacon Six or Pentax 6x7?

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 much heavier than the Pentacon Six.
 

The Pentax 6×7 with the plain (non-metering) prism. Picture reproduced from Pentax publicity published in 1976 for the German market [Px67front.jpg]

To the left we see the first version of the Pentax 6×7. Note the slot in the shutter speed dial (arrowed by me) 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 shutter 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. Like the Norita, and unlike the Pentacon Six, it has an instant-return mirror. There is no delayed action lever. Bad vibrations 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!).  An “Amateur Photographer” review years later (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. A review of the final version of the Pentax 67, published on luminous landscape.com and written in late 2001, states that further vibrations are in fact caused by the shutter itself, so even using the mirror lock up will not solve the problem:   “what's happened here is that the shutter has bounced, as all shutters do. So, there have effectively been two exposures. One during the opening of the shutter and the second during the closing, at which point the camera had essentially rung like a bell thus causing the second image.”

The reviewer goes on to say that that the Pentax 67 can be hand-held 

For most combinations of lenses and films it is a tripod-only camera.  Worse, the reviewer goes on to state:  

The reviewer concludes:

If you plan to take your camera out on hikes or on holiday, the implications of this are worth considering.

[Px67_&_P6_01.jpg]		Viewed side by side, the Pentacon Six appears taller than the Pentax 67II, a consequence of the spool holder knobs under the base of the camera.  However, when the two cameras are taken in the hand, the Pentax 67II is clearly bigger, wider and much heavier than the Pentacon Six. Here, both cameras are shown with their standard lens, the 105mm f/2.4 Pentax lens and the 80mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar lens.  The longer focal length and wider maximum aperture of the Pentax lens contributes to its weight, as well as the need for it to cover a wider diagonal than lenses for the Pentacon Six.
[Px67_E66_P6_01.jpg]		Pentax 67II, Exakta 66 and Pentacon Six side by side, each with their standard lens.  The Exakta 66 had a choice of four different standard lenses (see here) and here we see it with its top standard lens, the Schneider-Kreuznach 80mm f/2.8 Xenotar MF.
[Px67_E66_P6_02.jpg]		Top view, with the metering prism on each camera.
[Px67_E66_P6_03.jpg]		The Focussing Screens Here we can see the focusing screen for each of the cameras.  The Pentax 67II screen is of course wider than the screens in the Exakta 66 and the Pentacon Six, but it is also taller (viewed from this angle) than the Pentacon Six/Exakta 66 screen.  This is because the Pentax 67II screen covers 100% of the format, while the Pentacon Six/Exakta 66 screens do not. However, with a prism mounted (both the plain prism and the metering prism), one can only see 90% linear of the screen on the Pentax 67II (see below).
[Px67_E66_P6_04.jpg]		With the lens removed, we see better the brightness of the focussing screens.  The Exakta 66 screen is at least as bright as the Pentax 67 screen.  The Pentacon Six shown here has the same Rollei screen as the Exakta 66, but here we are viewing it from a slight angle, which makes it appear to be less bright.

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.

Interestingly, the reviewer on Luminous Landscape (see link, above) informs us that  

Alternative Viewfinders for the Pentax 6×7/67 A waist level finder and a magnifying head were also available for the Pentax 6×7.  These might, in particular, be useful for macro or studio work on a tripod (with horizontal images only!), not for the hand-held action shots for which the Pentax 6×7 was principally advertised. The folding “waist level” finder is on the left, here in its opened position.  It contains a 1.6x magnifier. The magnifying head is on the right.  It has a 1.3× magnifier, and dioptric adjustment, clearly inspired by the Pentacon Six magnifier head (see here). The style of the lettering on the viewfinders was changed over the years to match the changing style of the camera, but optically and mechanically there were, I believe, no changes.

[Px67finders.jpg]

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 speeds up to 1/500 sec.  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 (400mm and longer).

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 and the shutter
  
• The extremely high cost of the camera, lenses and accessories.

For the introduction to using Pentax 6×7 / Pentax 67 lenses on the Pentacon Six, see here.

For the results of tests of Pentax 6×7 / Pentax 67 lenses on the Pentacon Six and on the Pentax 67II, see here and here.

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 Latest revision: June 2021