It took nearly a month, but I finally received from the lab my first photos shot with the Pentax 6𝗑7.

My first photos with this camera are on black and white Ilford HP5 400, and—despite having picked up yellow #15 and red #25 filters for just this purpose—I omitted filters for these first shots to get a sense of how the camera performs without them.

A black dog with white markings on its chest balanced on a downed tree in the forest

I still have a lot to learn about this camera. It requires a tremendous amount of light to prevent the enormous mirror from creating vibration blur (one reason why the mirror lock-up version of this camera is absolutely necessary), and I was shooting under cloud cover deep in a forest.

A bush with variegated leaves in the foreground with out of focus background

But overall, I’m happy with these first images. It’s been a long time since I’ve shot medium format, and the relative quality of the resulting images compared to 35mm is unmistakeable.

A pickup truck in a gravel parking lot with trees rising to the sky all around

A river running along basalt rock with trees lining the banks

I’m going to try Kodak Ektar 100 color film next, but I might have to wait for Oregon’s famous blanket of grey to recede to get sufficient light for ISO 100. I might try pushing film in this camera given its limitations in low light.