{"id":5599,"date":"2025-04-25T10:47:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T09:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/?p=5599"},"modified":"2025-04-25T22:00:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T21:00:59","slug":"nikon-pentax-comparisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/equipment-review\/nikon-pentax-comparisons\/","title":{"rendered":"Two 1980s film cameras (Nikon-Pentax) compared today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Was it worth it to buy a new film camera when I had a perfectly good one in the drawer, one that I have owned since 1984? It was time for some comparisons. I put a roll of Tri-X through each and developed both films in exactly the same way. I scanned them with exactly the same equipment and settings though I might have made their curves a little different in Lightroom. I took some of the same subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Pappenheim<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pappenheim by Pentax ME Super (SMC 50mm f1.4) might have been shot at f2<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nikon F4 | Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D | Tri-X Pan 400 Digitized with Nikon D810 | daylight Home developed in D76 | 6.75 mins | tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The author photographed by Pentax<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nikon F4 | Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D | Tri-X Pan 400 Digitized with Nikon D810 | daylight Home developed in D76 | 6.75 mins | tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bookshelf by Pentax<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nikon F4 | Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D | Tri-X Pan 400 Digitized with Nikon D810 | daylight Home developed in D76 | 6.75 mins | tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The images are very comparable and it takes a bit of magnification (more than you can do with these images here) to see that the Nikon seems to produce clearer, sharper images, possibly with more contrast though that could be a LR effect. What this comparison of a few images chosen from two rolls of 36 pictures does not show you is the completely out of focus shots that the Pentax produced, probably a good half dozen of those, plus a couple more where the exposure was wrong. The Nikon on the other hand did not drop a single shot. In terms of camera movement, neither of them compare with a modern camera with vibration reduction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Above the contact from the Pentax<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the Nikon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Was it worth it to buy a new film camera when I had a perfectly good one in the drawer, one that I have owned since 1984? It was time for some comparisons. I put a roll of Tri-X through each and developed both films in exactly the same way. I scanned them with exactly…Read more Two 1980s film cameras (Nikon-Pentax) compared today<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,18,24],"tags":[246,70,247,222,123,248],"class_list":["post-5599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equipment-review","category-photography","category-sort-of-technical","tag-cameras","tag-film","tag-gear-review","tag-photography","tag-review","tag-tri-x"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5599"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5614,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5599\/revisions\/5614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}