Will anyone shooting weddings with the pentax 67 let me know what their experiences are. Is the 30th of a sec. flash synch a problem, what type of flash, what focal length? Any information will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

George Mazzetti

-- George Mazzetti (GMazz22240@aol.com), February 23, 1998

Answers

It is a piece of cake. Just purchase the 165 and 90 LS lenses. Set your camera speed to 1/8sec. Cock the lens shutter, set shutter speed to 1/125 or faster (I use 1/250) and shoot. Just remember to cock the lens shutter every time. Of course, there is a lot more to it as you know. I use an L-508 Sekonic meter and a couple of White Lightning ZAP1000's. I take incident readings of my subjects, adjust lighting to what I want. Mount the camera on a tripond and shoot as described earlier. Respond if you like more specifics.

-- Masood Malikyar (mmalikyar@compuserve.com), March 10, 1998.

George, I use the Pentax 67 system for weddings. I use the 105 mm lens for the majority of the shots. The wider 75 mm is also very useful. I use a Sunpak 622 flash. It is so heavy that it seems to stabilize the camera and prevents shake. I use the 30th second synch speed and am very happy with the system. The only problem is with fill flash. With a 30th sec synch speed, the 67 is not very good for outdoor shots. Whenever I need to soften harsh shadows, I use a 35mm camera with flash. I have the 9xi but prefer my 600si which has a flash compensation dial. The Pentax 67 system is still the best priced MF system available and it does a fine job with weddings. Oh yes, the 35mm is really all you need for the reception shots. The only medium format photos I take at receptions are the cake, garter toss, sitting at the bridal table and the bouquet toss. I hope this helps you. I realize that this response is a little late.

-- Bill Heiker (Billh@derbytech.com), February 19, 1999.

Hi George,

Sorry for the late answer. I do not own a Pentax 67 ... well, not yet. I am not a pro either. The information I can provide to you is the professional photographer that my family asked for his service twice (because we were satisfied with his work) have been using 3 P67 for the last 25 years for his work. I saw him operating with a Metz 45CT4 flash, but I don't know which lens he was using.

-- Sieu-Hoa Thoi (sthoi@yahoo.com), April 07, 1999.

I've used the 6 X 7 to shoot several weddings and my experience is that it is good for before and after shots but not during the ceremony. The amount of noise generated by the mirror slap is too distracting so take along a 35 mm for those shots. They are not the ones commonly printed in large sizes anyway.

-- David Pneuman (david_pneuman@stortek.com), April 23, 1999.

This is a very late answer. Years ago, I did all my weddings with a Mamiya C330 TLR. In the early 1980's I got the bug for ideal format, and offed the C330 system for the P67. I shot a lot of weddings with the P67, but pride kept me from realizing how much it sucks as a wedding camera.

In September of 1999, I contracted a big wedding for the following month, and decided I was going back to the C330 system strictly for weddings. Thanks to eBay, I picked up a pair of C330F bodies, a prism for each, and all the lenses. Like long-absent old friends, my hands and those C330s picked up right where they had left off years earlier. The P67 tagged along and was used for the backdrop-oriented wedding portraiture, while the C330s did all the portable work.

Compared to the TLR lenses, my Pentax 90LS lens was miserable trying to do rapid synchro sunlight flash. Above 1/30th, use the lens shutter, below use the focal plane. Swap around the sync cord, tilt the camera on the bracket for vertical vs horizontal. The inevitable misfires made me reshoot a number of times. Not being able to see through the viewfinder when the flash went off made me crazy. My assistant had to constantly watch every flash firing. Yuck.

Unlike the P67, the C330 lenses have a nice feature where both the aperture and shutter speed can be twisted as a pair. As the shutter speed increases, the lens opens up. Voila.. constant daylight exposure, with the f-stop being varied as the flash distance changes. The TLR offers significant benefits for portable flash and wedding action shooting. No shifting in the bracket for vertical due to the square negative. No mirror blackout, instantaneous shutter trip with no latency, very quiet, hand-holdable at slow speeds, and the same straight film plane flatness the P67 is known for. I really don't like the square format, but found it to be the price I was willing to pay for all the other benefits.

On the plus side, the P67 is right at home in a strobe studio setup and away from a portable flash bracket. The 1/30th sync is not a problem, nor is shutter induced vibration. Using the P67 for bridal portraiture with the 135 and 200 lenses is great.

-- Bruce Gavin (doc@compudox.com), June 19, 2000.