Half-frame cameras have been around for long time, early examples date back to 1915; half-frame cameras allowed two photos in a standard 35mm frame - you traded a little fidelity and sharpness for more photos on a roll of film (72 photos on a typical 36 exposure roll) and a more compact camera. Arguably, half-frame cameras peaked with the Olympus Pen F line in the late 60's/early 70's, packing a lot of mechanical clock-work beauty into a small interchangeable lens camera package that still has a fan-base today (just look at that engraved gothic 'F'!) Once considered a film-format blip (although not as blippy as some), half-frame is now back in the photography news in 2024 as Ricoh/Pentax release a new film-camera; the first announced by a major brand in almost two decades, and it is a half-frame camera - the Pentax 17.

The last major film-camera manufactured by a large consumer brand was a point-and-shoot in 2005 by Canon; although apparently Nikon was still making and selling their flagship film Nikon F6 up until 2020. Making cameras and knowing how to create a film camera from scratch are two different things, so Pentax reached out to retired engineers to aide in the creation of the Pentax 17. Amusingly, this is not the first time this has happened in the industry, Nikon released a special edition of its S3 Rangefinder camera in the year 2000 and had to reverse engineer, as well as relearn manufacturing and assembly techniques to build them. Will the Pentax 17 be well received in 2024 and see an upswing in the use of film, or will it fail in a misguided attempt to breathe life into a dead format?