Petri

When you think of Japanese SLR camera makers from the film camera era, you probably think of Nikon, Canon, Pentax, and Minolta. Perhaps also Olympus, Yashica, Fuji, Ricoh, Mamiya, or Konica as well. Maybe it even stretches to the obscure, like Cosina or Chinon. But seemingly, almost nobody recognizes another Japanese company that made an interesting mark in the history books: Petri. Originally known as Kuribayashi, Petri was initially the name of a camera model, but later adopted by Kuribayashi as (ostensibly) a more market-friendly name for the company itself. In 2022 when I became enamored of 35mm SLRs and wanted to try pretty much anything that looked interesting, I saw, and purchased, a Petri 35mm camera, what I know as a Petri V VI, but often referred to as the V6, Petri Flex V6, Petri Penta V6, and other variations. After putting a couple of rolls through my beautiful example of the type, I decided it’s high time for a review.

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