5 frames with Petri 7s using Kodak Gold 200

Several months ago, I stumbled across Barry Carr’s article 5 Frames With the Petri 7s. It quickly led me down a rabbit hole, as I wasn’t overly familiar with the Petri line of gear, subsequently learnt this particular camera celebrated 13 years of production, and personally had never tried a rangefinder camera.

To echo Barry’s commentary, the Petri 7s is indeed a rangefinder that comes with a fixed 45mm lens. I however managed to find the f/1.8 version, for the princely sum of USD$20 on ebay. While the postage was an additional $10, this kit ended up coming with 2 flashes, leather camera case, and separate leather gear bag, and the wider angle / tele lens set (both yet to be used – maybe that’s another 5 frames article).

Getting ready

Before taking this weapon out to the streets (I agree with Barry, that its heavy enough to camera whip someone), here was my approach:
1) Thoroughly clean the lens, selenium ring, and viewfinder area
2) Attach a small light meter to the cold shoe, and practice exposures to compare the internal and external reading. I had read that the selenium in these things sometimes ages poorly, I am pleased to say however that the suggested readings matched pretty well
3) Practice load a dud roll of 35mm, and cycle through a few times to make sure the crank works properly, and in the process, guesstimate that the shutter speed seems right
4) Get used to the rangefinder square, which I agree with Barry, isn’t the easiest thing to use. Confessing though, that I’m new to rangefinders anyway, so had no frame of reference for comparison

With all this to my liking it was time to load up a roll of Kodak Gold 200, and reintroduce this baby to the world….well…New York City anyway.

The results

I don’t process my own rolls, so I was happy to use The Darkroom photo lab for both the film development, and the scanning (I paid the extra $2 for enhanced scans). While I was comfortable with the scans provided, I did feel the urge to bring up the saturation a little in post, both overall, and in some shots for the primary color present, a click or two of sharpness, and obviously a 1:1 crop.

So… my experience?

I loved it. For 20 bucks, to know a roll of Gold (which itself costs half the price of the camera) is going to produce some charming results, means I have a cheap and interesting piece of gear on the shelf. Will I be grabbing this every time I go out? No. But it has been about 2 months, and I have found myself thinking during other photo days, that this shot might be interesting with the Petri. I am definitely tempted to take it out again, maybe this time with a slow black and white film that I will give a little push.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my experience with the Petri 7s. Feel free to check out my site or Instagram 

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