I picked this camera along with a matching 135mm lens at a used bookstore of all places for $15. The Petri FT EE was produced by the Kuribayashi company from 1969-1973. The company is best known for their early folders and later rangefinders, most notably the excellent Petri 7s. Their SLRs are not as well known, most likely due to the small number of lenses that were produced with their proprietary lens mount. I was unable to find much specific information about this model beyond it's mention in McKeown's. The camera features both full manual and aperture priority control.
I didn't have the best of luck with this camera. First off, the meter and therefor aperture priority mode doesn't work, which usually isn't a problem for me but I faced a few additional complications. First off, when I started taking pictures it was hard to focus because the viewfinder was so dark. Eventually I figured out auto-aperture only works in the non-functional aperture priority setting, which meant that the reason viewfinder was so dark was because the lens was already stopped down to 5.6 or 8 before triggering the shutter. Once I figured this out I'd open the aperture to a nice bright 1.4, which made focusing much easier. But then I of course forgot to close the aperture back down after focusing, which gave me a large number of overexposed shots. I also have a feeling that the shutter speeds are off much more than I thought which caused additional exposure errors. Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes. The camera is built well and the lens seems sharp enough, but I don't think I'll be using this one much in the future.
I took the camera out to Cox arboretum, which recently opened their new 46 foot observation tower.
Cox ArboretiumPetree FTEEblack and whiteddxlandscapeneopan 400towertree towerpetriefteeScan1306070009
View from the tower overlooking the arboretum.
Cox ArboretiumPetree FTEEblack and whiteddxlandscapeneopan 400petriefteeScan1306070003
Snapping turtle in the grass.
May 2013
Neopan 400 in DD-XCox ArboretiumPetree FTEEanimalblack and whiteddxneopan 400reptilesnapping turtlepetriefteeScan1306070006
Taken with Petri Ft EE
Cox ArboretiumPetree FTEEblack and whiteddxfaucetneopan 400petriefteeScan1306070012
