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Half frame SLR

bluez

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Norway
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In the 90's I was in a photo store and camera repair shop. I remember the owner showed me a Canon slr that was talking half frame 35mm. This would allow the photographer to shoot 72 pictures on a roll of film. I am sure it was Canon, however I can not find any model that does this, so I am wondering if it was custom made. The reason I would like one is to make pictures with the perforations on the side of the picture, like a 35 mm movie.
 
There's the Olympus Pen F - probably the most famous.

https://cameraquest.com/olypenf.htm

I once saw a Pentax KX half frame, and someone on APUG bought it, but I believe it was one of a kind, as the KX is a regular 35mm.
 
Some of the Robot-s were half frame, full and 24x24
They were at least comparable in quality to Leica.
 
Since you are from Norway, the camera you saw may have been a Nikon FM2 modified to half frame. Norwegian police worked with those long ago . . . they show up now and then and are terribly expensive. Unless you get lucky.

Do you realise you can also include the sprockets of any 135mm camera in your print? And, most half frame cameras have the images vertically. So, your sprockets will show on the smaller sides of the image !

Anyway, the Olympus Pen FT is great !

I attach the Nikon and an example of 135mm shots with sprockets
 

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The Konica Auto Reflex was the only production SLR with a selector for both full and half frame that I know of. The Olympus Pen F series was designed as a half frame SLR and featured a very flat body design with vertical mirror and no mirror box. The Olympus lenses for the Pen F series are compact and getting hard to source as age and attrition thin their number. Besides the Pentax KX and Nikon FM there were several regular SLR's that were custom modified to shoot half frame. Obviously very rare and expensive. If you really want to get into half frame with interchangeable lenses then Olympus Pen F is still the way to go. Buying from ebay you could probably cobble together a small system (body, 25mm f4, 38mm f1.8, 100mm f3.5) for about $1000 for clean, working samples.

The TTL meter in a Pen FT is workable (if working) but is a klugy 'transfer the reading' type. I always just carry a hand held meter for my Pen F and when I had a FT serviced, had the meter removed entirely and the beam splitter mirror replaced with a full surface one. This increases the brightness on the focusing screen half a stop.
 
Just as an FYI, you typically get 77 frames, not 72. And as noted above, if you want a half frame SLR, that is a Pen F (FT, FV).
 

I've been hungering after the Konica for a long while. I can't afford one at the moment but I keep hoping to spot one in a junk raid or a thrift sweep.
 
Cholentpot said:
I've been hungering after the Konica for a long while. I can't afford one at the moment but I keep hoping to spot one in a junk raid or a thrift sweep.
Click to expand...
Yeah, me too. Konica made some really good glass too. I remember back in the 70's people with the Auto Reflex used to drive photo finishers nuts if they switched back and forth between full and half frame on the same roll, great fun.
 
I would love to get my hands on one of the Konicas. It's a great idea to be able to switch between formats.
In the meantime, my Pen FT takes beautiful pictures and is very pocket-able.
 
Here's an obscure one for you -- I have a Fujica Half camera.

Really impressed with it - quite sharp, and fully manual rangefinder camera. These are an underrated genre -- I used mine most recently for a diptych portrait project but they'd also be good if you want to get into a Provoke/Daido groove...high contrast and grain, made easy.
 
choiliefan said:
I believe most of the Robots are actually 3/4 frame rather than half.
Click to expand...

Robot film cameras used 35 mm film, mostly in square 24 × 24 mm image format, but many used 18 × 24 mm (half-frame) and 24 × 36 mm (standard Leica format), and non-standard formats such as 6 × 24 mm (Recorder 6), 12 × 24 mm (Recorder 12) and 16 × 16 mm (Robot SC).
 
The Konica Autorex/Auto-reflex is a big, sturdy camera. I found it a bit *too* large and heavy. Quite easy to work on though (mine needed the prism cleaning).

I think they have fantastic potential for portrait photography — the 'crop factor' turns a standard lens to a 75mm equivalent at the flick of a switch.

 
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There's the Praktica L2 Half Frame but they are hard to find.
 
The Kyocera Samurai is a sort of sleeper... It pulls the film vertically, so you would be more inclined to shoot "horizontal" with the side perforations you are looking for.

It's an autofocus, zoom, reflex and has its quirks, but you might find one for cheap...
 
Quite some models of SLRs were modified into half-frame, either by the manufacturer or an independant workshop. The clientele for these were typically police authorities.
 

I bought one (for curiosity); it was pretty cheap and works quite good. I do not use it often.
It's space junk design reminds me to my beloved GA645 FUJIs.
 
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