Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Pentax 6×7 / 67

Pentax · Pentax 67 mount · 6×7cm on 120 or 220 film; 55×70mm actual per Pentax's 67II catalogue, 56×70mm per English Wikipedia; fixed back with a 120/220 selector · 1969

single source, unconfirmed via machine translation — corrections welcome

Known as “バケペン (Bakepen)”

Also known as: Pentax 6x7 · Pentax 6×7 · Asahi Pentax 6x7 · Asahi Pentax 6×7 · Pentax 67 · Pentax 6x7 MLU · 6x7 · 6×7 · ペンタックス 6×7 · ペンタックス67 · アサヒペンタックス6×7 · バケペン

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Asahi Pentax 6×7 (1969) Pentax 67 1969–1976 — —
Asahi Pentax 6×7 with mirror lock-up (1976) Pentax 67 1976–1989 — —
Pentax 67 (1989) Pentax 67 1989 — —
  1. The ¥137,500 launch price with the 105mm f/2.4 comes from one Japanese enthusiast page and is contradicted by Encounter magazine's ¥53,800, whose basis is not stated; neither is a Pentax document. The US$769.30 is a 1973 list price, four years after launch, not a launch price.
  2. Ricoh Imaging's product-history pages could not be reached from this container (404 on every path tried); the Ricoh 67II catalogue and product page are used instead for the 1969 debut and the format figures. pentaxforums.com returned 403 on every page, so its 6×7/67/67II comparison is not cited.
  3. The 1969 body's weight is given as 1.29kg by camera-wiki, Akagi Koichi and Encounter magazine, and the MLU body as 1.21kg by camera-wiki alone; Dan Cuny weighed his at 5 lb 5 oz (about 2.4kg) with prism and lens, matching Akagi's 2,380g and Wikipedia's 2.3kg.
  4. No production figures and no serial-number tables are published for any 6×7 or 67 body in the sources consulted.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • ASAHI PENTAX on the finder cover and 6×7 on the shoulder = 1969 or 1976 body; PENTAX and 67 = 1989 body (Ishii Camera)
  • Mirror-up control on the right side of the lens mount = 1976 or later (Ishii Camera; camera-wiki)
  • TTL bodies: the prism carries a coupling arm reaching down to the shutter-speed dial (Ishii Camera)
  • Dual bayonet: inner mount for 35mm to 300mm lenses, outer four-flange mount for 400mm to 1000mm (camera-wiki; Wikipedia)
  • Wooden left-hand grip fits the two posts on the front of the body and carries a cold shoe (Wikipedia; Dan Cuny)

Asahi Pentax 6×7 (1969):

  • ASAHI PENTAX on the finder cover and the AOCo hexagon badge on the body; 6×7 on the right shoulder (Ishii Camera; Camera no Naniwa)
  • No mirror-up lever or button on the right side of the lens mount: the 1976 body added it (Ishii Camera; camera-wiki)
  • Dealers write 'no lockup' or 'original' for this body (KEH product listings)

Asahi Pentax 6×7 with mirror lock-up (1976):

  • Mirror-up control on the right side of the lens mount: camera-wiki describes a small flush button under the numeral 7 of the 6×7 badge, Ishii Camera a switch on the right of the mount
  • Otherwise the same ASAHI PENTAX finder cover and 6×7 shoulder marking as the 1969 body

Pentax 67 (1989):

  • PENTAX alone on the finder cover, no ASAHI, and 67 rather than 6×7 on the right shoulder (Ishii Camera)
  • The AOCo hexagon logo is gone from the body and prism (Camera no Naniwa)
  • Multiple-exposure capability, which the 6×7 bodies lack (camera-wiki)
  • TTL pentaprism of this generation meters with a silicon photodiode rather than CdS (camera-wiki)

Specifications

Format
6×7cm on 120 or 220 film; 55×70mm actual per Pentax's 67II catalogue, 56×70mm per English Wikipedia; fixed back with a 120/220 selector · 10 on 120; 21 on 220 at first, 20 after the counter cam was changed (Wikipedia, camera-wiki) exposures
Finder
interchangeable: plain pentaprism, TTL pentaprism, folding waist-level hood, rigid magnifying hood · 90% coverage
Shutter
horizontal-travel cloth focal plane, electronically timed; the camera does not fire without a battery, and does not fire without film loaded (camera-wiki) · 1s–1/1000, B and X settings on the dial · flash sync X at 1/30 and slower; X and FP PC terminals, no hot shoe (Vintage Camera Digest) · no self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever, 180° (Akagi Koichi); the advance does not lock after cocking, so a second stroke wastes a frame
Back
fixed hinged back with a 120/220 selector; spool knobs on the base pull out to release the spools; no interchangeable magazines
Meter
none in the body; the TTL pentaprism finder meters through the lens, CdS on the 6×7 bodies and silicon photodiode on the 67
Motor drive
Not compatible — No motor or winder was offered for the 6×7 or 67
Weight
1290 g
Dimensions
184 × 101 × 91 (6×7) and 177 × 101 × 91 (6×7 MLU) and 185 × 108 × 92 (67), body only, from camera-wiki's table; weight_g is body only (Akagi Koichi; Encounter magazine); about 2.3–2.4kg with plain prism and 105mm f/2.4 mm
Country
Japan
Original price
¥137,500 with the 105mm f/2.4 at launch in 1969 (tomshome.sakura.ne.jp, one source); Encounter magazine prints ¥53,800 without saying what it covers; US list price $769.30 with the 105mm f/2.4 in 1973 (Vintage Camera Digest) (today $5,440)
Accessories
TTL pentaprism finder (CdS on the 6×7, silicon photodiode on the 67); plain pentaprism; folding waist-level hood; rigid magnifying hood · Wooden left-hand grip with cold shoe, fitting the two front posts · 67 extension tubes for the inner and outer bayonet; helicoid extension ring; auto bellows; reverse adapter · Focusing screens (microprism, split-image, matte, grid); right-angle finder; 2× magnifier; dioptre correction lenses · Flash bracket AF400T; rear converters 1.4× and 2× · Adapters for 67 lenses on 645 and K-mount bodies

90% coverage with the eye-level finder (Akagi Koichi, Photo & Culture Tokyo). The TTL prism couples to the aperture by a chain running into the finder bay (Wikipedia); Camera no Naniwa's warning is to take the lens off before fitting or removing the TTL prism, or the chain can break

Where sources disagree

First
  • November 1989 — Japanese Wikipedia's list of Pentax medium-format SLRs; 1989 — camera-wiki, Vintage Camera Digest, Camera no Naniwa
  • 1990 — English Wikipedia, Kosmo Foto, Shoot It With Film, Jo Geier, Dan Cuny

Better supported: 1989

The Japanese sources give a month; the English ones give a year and may be recording availability outside Japan.

Weight (grams)
  • 1.29kg body only for the 1969 body — camera-wiki, Akagi Koichi, Encounter magazine
  • 1.21kg body only for the 1976 MLU body — camera-wiki alone

Better supported: 1290

camera-wiki is the only source to give the MLU body a separate, lower weight, and it gives none for the 67.

Original price
  • ¥137,500 with the 105mm f/2.4, 1969 — tomshome.sakura.ne.jp
  • ¥53,800, 1969 — Encounter magazine, basis not stated

Neither figure comes from a Pentax document; the numeric yen field is left empty.

Exposures on 220
  • 21 — camera-wiki for the 6×7 and the 67II; Akagi Koichi for the 6×7
  • 20 — camera-wiki for the 6×7 MLU and 67; Wikipedia says the count went from 21 to 20 with the new counter cam

Both are right for different bodies: the counter cam changed during the MLU era and the 67II went back to 21.

What reviewers say

History

The Asahi Pentax 6×7 is a 35mm SLR scaled up until it takes 120 film. Shown as a prototype called the Pentax 220 at Photokina in 1966 and sold from July 1969, it has a horizontal cloth focal-plane shutter running 1 second to 1/1000, interchangeable finders on top, a lever wind on the right, and a fixed back with a switch for 120 or 220. Pentax’s own catalogue for the 67II calls it the first medium-format SLR to give an erect, unreversed finder image, and that is the whole idea: hold it at the eye like a Spotmatic and get a negative four and a half times the size. The price was the weight, 1.29kg for the body alone and about 2.4kg with the plain prism and the 105mm f/2.4, and the nickname in Japan, バケペン, is about nothing else.

The shutter is electronically timed and the camera does not fire without a 6V PX28 cell; it does not fire without film loaded either, which catches people testing a body in a shop. Flash sync is 1/30 and slower through X and FP PC terminals, with no hot shoe. There is no meter in the body: the TTL pentaprism finder meters through the lens and couples to the aperture ring by a chain that runs into the finder bay, and Camera no Naniwa’s rule is to take the lens off before the prism goes on or comes off, because the chain breaks otherwise. The 1969 prism uses a CdS cell; the 67’s uses a silicon photodiode. Lenses fit a double bayonet, an inner mount for 35mm to 300mm and an outer four-flange mount for the 400mm to 1000mm glass.

Three versions, and two of them are the same camera. The 1969 body has no mirror lock-up, and English Wikipedia records that early bodies were criticised for a friction film advance that slipped with age and spaced frames badly, which Pentax addressed with a smooth metal counter roller in place of the rubberised one; the count on 220 dropped from 21 to 20 with the new counter cam. In 1976 a mirror-up control appeared on the right side of the lens mount, and the switch also turns the power on, so a body left with the mirror up is a body draining its battery. In November 1989, with the brand change from Asahi Pentax to Pentax, the camera became the Pentax 67: PENTAX alone on the finder cover, 67 on the shoulder, the AOCo hexagon gone, restyled knobs, a revised shutter whose bulb setting now draws current (Pentax sold a modification to fix it), multiple exposure, and the silicon prism. English-language sources, Kosmo Foto, Jo Geier and Shoot It With Film among them, date the 67 to 1990 instead.

Identification is by the badges and the mount. ASAHI PENTAX on the finder and 6×7 on the shoulder mean a 1969 or 1976 body; look at the right of the lens mount for the mirror-up control to tell those two apart. PENTAX and 67 mean the 1989 body. A TTL body shows a coupling arm reaching from the prism down to the shutter-speed dial. The wooden left-hand grip, which fits the two posts on the front and carries a cold shoe, was sold for all three and turns up with any of them.

Buying one means testing what the reviews complain about. Mirror shock is real, and every source says to use the lock-up on a tripod at slow speeds; the advance does not lock after cocking, so a second stroke wastes a frame; a slipping early advance shows up as uneven spacing on the negatives; the battery is everything, so a dead cell is a dead camera and a stiff shutter release lock is normal. Loading needs a flat surface and the spool knobs on the base pulled out and lined up. Prices are the other consideration: Shoot It With Film put an MLU or 67 body at $300 to 500 and a 67II at $1,500 to 2,000, and Jo Geier’s advice is that the 67II’s electronics, not the older bodies’ mechanics, are the thing that fails in cold and damp. What the sources do not give is any production figure or serial table, and the launch price is two Japanese numbers that disagree.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Pentax 6×7 / 67
Asahi Pentax 6×7, about 1970 — Fotomatt, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Pentax 6×7 / 67
Asahi Pentax 6×7 with plain prism, 105mm f/2.4 and the wooden grip — Jan von Erpecom, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Pentax 6×7 / 67
Pentax 67 with TTL pentaprism — Moto "Club4AG" Miwa, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $290 across 25 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-19 (middle half $100–$650). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 71 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Pentax 645 · Pentax 67II

Lenses for this body: Takumar / SMC Pentax 67 105mm f/2.4 · SMC Pentax 67 165mm f/2.8 · Takumar / SMC Pentax 67 200mm f/4 · SMC Pentax 6×7 / 67 45mm f/4 · SMC Pentax 6×7 / 67 55mm f/4 · Takumar / SMC Pentax 67 75mm f/4.5 · SMC Takumar LS / SMC Pentax 6×7 / 67 90mm f/2.8

Sources (17)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.