By: Chuck Miller
Pentacon Six TL

The Pentacon Six does the Hamilton College Chapel

I brought several of my film and digital cameras with me on my 40th college reunion two weeks ago. Rather than let everybody sit in the car and just go from Albany to Central New York and back, I wanted to give all of the cameras a chance to shine at one point in time or another.

And at the time, I also wanted to test out the distances achieved between two of my recently-acquired lenses, the 80mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar “kit lens” that came with the Pentacon Six, and the new-to-me Meyer Optik Görlitz Orestegor 500mm f/5.6 telephoto that, because it’s so big and thick, I’ve kinda nicknamed it “Johnny Wadd.” If you’re too young to know who Johnny Wadd is, go look up films like Tell Them Johnny Wadd Is Here. Maybe don’t look that up at work, but hey, you do you.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and the Hamilton College Chapel – the iconic three-story prayer house that remains the focal point of college life – stands ready for its closeup.

I’ve photographed the Chapel many times and used many cameras in doing so. But this will be the first time that I can dial in two different lenses on the same subject. Mind you, I’m probably about 60 feet away from the Chapel itself, and I did not change my position during shooting.

First, I put the CZJ Biometar kit lens on the Pentacon Six, and took a test shot.

Hamilton College Chapel. Pentacon Six TL camera, Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar 80mm f/2.8 lens, Kodak T-Max 400 film. Photo (c) 2025 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.

The more I use this camera, the more I like this camera as my primary medium format shooter.

Okay … let’s take the kit lens off the body and shove Johnny Wadd into the open mount.

And …

Holy shit. Sorry, I photographed a house of worship and I cursed. Bless me Father, for I have sinned …

That photo is so close, you could see the details in the brickface.

I shot a few more images, this time clicking my camera all the ay up the tower.

Hey, just for fun … let’s see if I can get a four-photo stack on this image, shall we?

And then try to combine it in PhotoShop … and …

Hamilton College Chapel Tower, four photos combined. Pentacon Six TL camera, Meyer Optik Görlitz Orestegor 500mm f/5.6 lens, Kodak T-Max 400 film. Photo (c) 2025 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.

Before anyone thinks this qualifies as a “Buena Vista Panorama” image, you can definitely see the seams between each image as it lays one on top of the other. As much as this image works in theory, it won’t work as a vertical panorama because of the shading.

But damn, Johnny Wadd does come through in the end, doesn’t it? 😀

Yeah, I think I can have some serious fun with these camera lenses.

And I’m not finished yet.

Not by ANY means.