Can we talk Medium Format cameras?

The Mamiya Sekor lenses are excellent, as are Hasselblad lenses, you won't see much difference but lenses for Hasselblad are a bit faster I think their 80mm is f2.8 whereas the Mamiya 90mm is f3.5

The RB is the older model, all metal all mechanical, very little to go wrong
The RZ is newer and has a good amount of plastic in it to keep weight down but has some electrics I think (I don't know I've never used one but there are a few members on here with them)
Functionally they are pretty much the same but the RZ has newer lenses which are less prone to flare etc
 
The Fuji GA 645Zi Professional is a great MF rangefinder camera. Light, easy to use and carry with a fixed zoom of 55-90mm. Very versatile and will go into a large coat pocket or ski jacket.

I've had mine for about 5 years now - totally reliable - lots of features and great value for money on the used market.

Some reviews and feedback here

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0105/cameracorner.htm

and here

http://www.photographyreview.com/cat/cameras/film-cameras/medium-format/fujifilm/ga645-zi/prd_83369_3107crx.aspx
 
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Matt989 said:
You've lost me, cant see you explaining why they were significantly cheaper, there is a lot of info in the thread though and im reading on an iphone.
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You're punctation threw me, I didn't realise it was all the same question..
 
The only MF cameras I've used are a Rolleicord IV and Mamiya RZ67 Pro II. They are both great (I don't think there's actually a duff MF camera? Maybe a Holga 120 if image quality is your ultimate aim :D)

The RZ has an electronic shutter but as far as I know the max sync speed on it is the same as the RB at 1/400th. There are also various "failsafes" on the RZ to do with making sure the darkslide has been removed before the shutter will fire, making sure the darkslide is in place before the filmback will detach from the body, removing the lens etc. I've no idea if any of these are on the RB or other MF slr cameras...the polaroid back on the RZ will allow you to take a shot with the darkslide still in place though :bonk:.

I've never held the RB67 but on paper, there's very little difference in weight between the RB and RZ. The RZ has a possible advantage in that it can use both the newer lenses (including a 110mm f/2.8) and can also use the older (cheaper) RB lenses when the camera is set to RBL. The rotating back on the RB/RZ means you don't have to mess around rotating the camera when switching between landscape and portrait orientation. Obviously this isn't an issue if you're shooting 6x6 but is something you'd still have to do with the 645 camera.
 
My Yashica-Mat has a bulb mode and I am really impressed with the sharpness of the few pictures I have taken so far.

Heather
 
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Chris L said:
...The RZ has an electronic shutter but as far as I know the max sync speed on it is the same as the RB at 1/400th. There are also various "failsafes" on the RZ to do with making sure the darkslide has been removed before the shutter will fire, making sure the darkslide is in place before the filmback will detach from the body, removing the lens etc. I've no idea if any of these are on the RB or other MF slr cameras...the polaroid back on the RZ will allow you to take a shot with the darkslide still in place though :bonk:.
...
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Yes, same on the RB. The mechanism can occasionally cause a jam until the slide is replaced and removed. The top shutter speed of 1/400 sec is because it wasn't possible to open and close the leaf shutter any faster at maximum aperture.
 
The interlocks are only on the later model RBs. Best value is probably still the RB67 Pro S, it's also probably the most popular of the Mamiyas on this forum.
 
Both the RB and RZ with a standard lens, film back and wlf are 1KG heavier than a 500CM with the same accessories.
1.5KG v 2.5KG, that is a significant difference, I mean the RB/Z is not a million miles off twice the weight of a 500CM.
 
joxby said:
Both the RB and RZ with a standard lens, film back and wlf are 1KG heavier than a 500CM with the same accessories.
1.5KG v 2.5KG, that is a significant difference, I mean the RB/Z is not a million miles off twice the weight of a 500CM.
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Yup, it gets even worse when you add in a metered prism. The Bronica SQ-Ai with ae prism weighs less than 2kg compared to 3.5kg for the RZ and aeII prism. Everyone has their own preferences with regards to the weight of the kit they use but if I was looking for a medium format SLR today I'd sacrifice the 1cm on the neg and go for a Bronica SQ-Ai for my needs. As it is I found the L-grip made enough of a difference in the RZ's handling that I could live with the weight
 
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Chris L said:
Yup, it gets even worse when you add in a metered prism. The Bronica SQ-Ai with ae prism weighs less than 2kg compared to 3.5kg for the RZ and aeII prism. Everyone has their own preferences with regards to the weight of the kit they use but if I was looking for a medium format SLR today I'd sacrifice the 1cm on the neg and go for a Bronica SQ-Ai for my needs. As it is I found the L-grip made enough of a difference in the RZ's handling that I could live with the weight
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Now you're making me want to go and put my Mamiya 1000S on the scales to find out how much it weighs when it's loaded up with an 80mm lens, L-grip and AE prism... :)

L-grip makes a big difference to the handling of the 1000S too.
 
Matt989 said:
Whats the going rate for a RB67 with RB90mm in pretty much mint condition?
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Vanilla, Pro S or Pro SD body?
C or non-C 90mm?
With or without back/WLF?
 
So, after a few days of research, I've hit upon one make and model that seems to offer the following;

- High image quality.
- Interchangable lenses, but 'only' as wide as 55mm.
- Not overly heavy (1.7kgs with lens).
- Priced at under £200 (with standard lens).

Have y' gissed what it is yet (in the words of Rolf Harris :D)?

... The Mamiya C330 ('f' or 's' model, ideally) :).

What do you think - a good choice for a 'cheap' introduction to MF, which won't be too heavy to carry around or too expensive if it turns out to be a bad purchase :shrug:? Hope so!

If any of you have used a C330 (or C33, C3, C220, C22 etc., come to that) and have any comments about functionality and image quality, I'd love to hear them ;)?
 
Many many moons ago I did consider the C330 but I can't remember why I didn't buy one..so that's not much help to you :(
 
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See one in the flesh before ordering. They are quite large, especially for a TLR!
 
For an inexpensive, interchangeable lens route into medium format photography then the Mamiya C330 are a great choice.

I had one many moons ago and they are very good. Heavier than the Rolleis and Yashimats but then you get the flexibility of changing lens. I agree with Jim above see one and handle one in the flesh first as they are taller than the more traditional square bodied machines and not as light as other TLRs.

Lens quality is very good and I think either take 46mm or 49mm filters so plenty around. They can be a little challenging when using graduated or polarising filters, but with a little though can be used.

A friend of mine still has and uses one and I might see if I can borrow it off him sometime soon.

http://www.btinternet.com/~g.a.patterson/mfaq/m_faq-contents.html

This site gives a fair bit of information about the whole Mamiya TLR range.
 
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They seem to be going for around £130-150 on the bay at the moment. Good choice I think for your requirements, I've been looking at them myself as the interchangeable lenses appeal to me.

Andy
 
Matt989 said:
-Mamiya RB67 Pro S camera
-K/L 90mm F3.5 lens
-Mamiya Original lens cap
-West level finder
-120 magazine
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Depends if it's retail, Ebay or private sale. I've seen them go for £200-300. Retail is higher as it will have a basic SOGA warranty. There's usually a few in the adverts in the back of AP.
 
I've got a C220 and really like it, it is bigger than the Yash's and Rollei's etc but if you're holding it at waist level then it's not really a problem, I've also recently acquired a C330 as well, it's substantially heavier the C220, it weighs in at 1.15kg and 1.4kg for the C330, that's without a lens attached, an 80mm f2.8 lens weighs 300g and a 65mm f3.5 is slightly heavier at 327g. So if you're going to carry it around all day without the benefit of a strap then it's akin to carrying a house brick around but then you cant get a decent photograph out of a house brick.
 
Talking of weight and straps etc, does anyone know of a strap I could get for my Yash Mat. The bloo*y strap on the never ready case is worse than a garotte after an hour the circulation gets cut of from y brain and I start acting normal.

Andy
 
Andysnap said:
Talking of weight and straps etc, does anyone know of a strap I could get for my Yash Mat. The bloo*y strap on the never ready case is worse than a garotte after an hour the circulation gets cut of from y brain and I start acting normal.

Andy
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I use a gordy long one on my rollei. Comfortable with the neck rest and can be made a number of lengths.
 
So, in a characteristic display of childish impatience :D, having decided that the Mamiya C330(f) was the MF camera for me, I tracked a few on eBay and won one 5 minutes ago :thumbs:.

It's the 'F' model with the (later) 'blue dot' 80mm f/2.8 lens. Although I really wanted a wider lens, I decided to just try using the lens that seems to come with all of these cameras (i.e. 80mm) and see how I like MF photography first. The 80mm is reckoned to be one of the sharpest of the bunch (and has the widest max aperture), so I should certainly get a feel for how good the image quality can be. Equally, if I discover (God forbid) that MF negs don't scan any better than 35mm negs on my scanner, then I'll probably just put it back on eBay and chalk it up to experience :shrug:.

So, I will let you all know in due course how things go with my new toy and will post any questions that I have in this part of the forum (this thread, even).

For now though, I really want to say a very big and very sincere THANK YOU :thumbs: to all of the people who've offered their thoughts and advice on this subject. If I hadn't been part of this discussion, I have a feeling that I would have spent a lot more money on something that may not have been any better for me than the camera I chose.


Knikki said:
For an inexpensive, interchangeable lens route into medium format photography then the Mamiya C330 are a great choice.

I had one many moons ago and they are very good. Heavier than the Rolleis and Yashimats but then you get the flexibility of changing lens. I agree with Jim above see one and handle one in the flesh first as they are taller than the more traditional square bodied machines and not as light as other TLRs.

Lens quality is very good and I think either take 46mm or 49mm filters so plenty around. They can be a little challenging when using graduated or polarising filters, but with a little though can be used.

A friend of mine still has and uses one and I might see if I can borrow it off him sometime soon.

http://www.btinternet.com/~g.a.patterson/mfaq/m_faq-contents.html

This site gives a fair bit of information about the whole Mamiya TLR range.
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Hi Nick!

Thanks for the link and your comments :). As you can see, I went with the C330 after all. I'm planning to use it mounted on a tripod most of the time, so as long as it's not too heavy to carry (and at 1,700g it's even lighter than the D700 kir that I normally carry) then I don't mind. The RB67 model (at appx. 4kgs with one lens), was just the wrong side of that line for me :|.

Andysnap said:
They seem to be going for around £130-150 on the bay at the moment. Good choice I think for your requirements, I've been looking at them myself as the interchangeable lenses appeal to me.

Andy
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Hi Andy!

I paid 158 quid, but that's fine with me if the image quality turns out to be as good as I'm hoping :). Crikey, £158 is less than I've spent on some of my old Nikkor manual focus primes and they're possibly not even as sharp as the Mamiya 80mm f/2.8 :p.

The extra (55mm) lens would be expensive though :(. I may have to forget that idea.

RaglanSurf said:
I've got a C220 and really like it, it is bigger than the Yash's and Rollei's etc but if you're holding it at waist level then it's not really a problem, I've also recently acquired a C330 as well, it's substantially heavier the C220, it weighs in at 1.15kg and 1.4kg for the C330, that's without a lens attached, an 80mm f2.8 lens weighs 300g and a 65mm f3.5 is slightly heavier at 327g. So if you're going to carry it around all day without the benefit of a strap then it's akin to carrying a house brick around but then you cant get a decent photograph out of a house brick.
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Well said that man :D!

As I said, I plan to just carry it in a shoulder bag and only take it out to put it on a tripod every now and then. Usually, when I go out anywhere to do 'serious' photography, I have a (gripped) D700 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens and some metal-bodied manual focus primes too. The whole lot weighs well over 3.5kgs - this C330 is half that!

Let's see how it all works out ;).

Thanks again everyone! G'night.

Andy
 
Excellent, well done Andy look forward to seeing some results.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Excellent, well done Andy look forward to seeing some results.
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MindofMel said:
co-sign.
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Thanks Nick and Mel, but don't hold your breath ;). This 'winter' doesn't look like it's ever going to end (15°C, black skies and rain right now :(), so it may be some time before I get out and use up a roll (even though 'a roll' is only going to be about 10 frames with MF :lol:).

My next problem is going to be knowing what to do about a light meter :thinking: . Experienced photograhers often say, "don't bother - Sunny 16 is your friend", but we don't have any sun where I live and my fingers don't go up to 16 :lol: (I'm joking, I know that's not really how the rule works), so I would be happier with a proper meter. That said, good ones are fiercely expensive, so I've just discovered :(. Even the rather basic (but trustworthy) Sekonic L-208 is a hundred quid :eek: - leaving aside the more capable L-308s at nearly half that again.

Has anyone got any recommendations for a cheap light meter (either an old analogie one, or maybe one of those new generic 30 quid LCD ones that you see on ebay) :shrug:?
 
Do you have a smartphone? Then get a lightmeter app. The one I have on my iPhone is relatively accurate.
 
I got the sekonic twinmate L208 for £50 and its so simple to use even I can't muck it up.

Andy
 
Going back to the folding Ikonta idea, has anyone any comment on the various options here? I'm intrigued by the idea of a medium format pocketable rangefinder, even if it only has one (Zeiss!) lens. I saw a comment about and "uncoupled meter", what on earth is that?
 
An uncoupled meter is basically like a handheld meter but its attached to the camera so you get a reading and set the shutter and aperture in line with the dial.
I had an Ensign Selfix 16-20 and a 12-20 which are both uncoupled, folding rangefinders. The 16-20 takes 6 x 4.5 negs and the 12-20 6 x 6 and they were both brilliant cameras. Unfortunately I've just sold them both or you could have a lend of them. The Ross Xpress lenses were considered on a par with Zeiss and Ross Ensign were probably the last great British camera makers. Unfortunately they decided that this 35mm fad would fizzle out and everyone would come back to 120 film, they went bust in 1961 (ish)

Andy
 
Naboo32 said:
Has anyone got any recommendations for a cheap light meter (either an old analogie one, or maybe one of those new generic 30 quid LCD ones that you see on ebay) :shrug:?
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Cheap meters?

Well you could keep an eye out for one of the Weston ones either a IV or a V you can pick them up for around the £30 mark. They are selenium meters so do not require batteries and work well in most light situations. HOWEVER with them being selenium they can fail after a while and would need to be refurbished which can be done for around the £35 mark. I have 2 of them and one is almost spot on the other is out by at least a 1 stop. Oh and once the sun goes down then they are really not accurate.

If you want to spend a little more say up to £80 then look out for the Gossen Lunasix or Lunasix F. Both are battery powered and very powerful meters one of them, Lunalite, is so sensitive that it will even give you a reading in moon light.
 
menthel said:
Do you have a smartphone? Then get a lightmeter app. The one I have on my iPhone is relatively accurate.
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Hi Jim!

No, I'm afraid that I am trying hard to shum the 21st century and all of its technology ;), hence the retarded step towards MF film (instead of just buying the Nikon D800 body that I really want :naughty:).

Seriously though, thanks for the suggestion - it's a good one :thumbs:!


Andysnap said:
I got the sekonic twinmate L208 for £50 and its so simple to use even I can't muck it up.

Andy
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:) Mmm, for 50 quid, I'd probably have one too - I can't believe what they go for new though. It wouldn't matter so much if I planned to use a light meter for general photography with other cameras, but the chances are that this C330 will be the only meterless camera that I ever own (unless I really like MF or older cameras) and I hate the idea of buying a 'budget' TLR camera for 150 notes and then having to shell out nearly that again just for an accessory, which will probably only find its way back onto ebay in the future :(.

I will keep looking around to see what else is out there, I think. Then, once I've finally realised that buying anything other than a good quality lightmeter is a 'false economy', I'll probably 'get over myself' and splash out on a Sekonic L-308s (which could at least be of some future use with my D700/twin SB900 set up :shrug:).

Thanks for the useful input, Andy, as always.
 
Of course the other thing to do until you sort out the meter thing is carry around your smallest digital camera and use that as a meter. I ended up with a 508s as it spot meters and I like to use a *******ised version of the zone system.
 
Knikki said:
Cheap meters?

Well you could keep an eye out for one of the Weston ones either a IV or a V you can pick them up for around the £30 mark. They are selenium meters so do not require batteries and work well in most light situations. HOWEVER with them being selenium they can fail after a while and would need to be refurbished which can be done for around the £35 mark. I have 2 of them and one is almost spot on the other is out by at least a 1 stop. Oh and once the sun goes down then they are really not accurate.

If you want to spend a little more say up to £80 then look out for the Gossen Lunasix or Lunasix F. Both are battery powered and very powerful meters one of them, Lunalite, is so sensitive that it will even give you a reading in moon light.
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Hi Nick,

Sorry, I was typing a reply whilst you were posting this.

Thanks for the hints. I must say, I had noticed just what a large percentage of old (selenium cell?) lightmeters on ebay were listed as faulty or 'un-tested' :| - this is very off-putting to the average buyer and doesn't hint at great reliability.

The Gossen Lunasix models seem fairly plentiful on German ebay, so I will give that some thought too, thanks.
 
I have a couple of (working meters) - a modern electronic and a selenium Weston.. but I don't always use either of these, I always have a printed copy of the Fred Parker UEC in my bag (and PDF of it on my phone) with some personal anotations relevant to scenes I shoot on a regular basis. I started out annotating it from digital EXIF data, and now from my film shoot notes as well. It's as low tech as it gets. And it works.

This is the first generation of the sheet, it's been revised a few times since then and I added some zone information on the reverse for when I get the digital spotmeter out, and some reciprocity/dynamic range notes.
 
menthel said:
Of course the other thing to do until you sort out the meter thing is carry around your smallest digital camera and use that as a meter. I ended up with a 508s as it spot meters and I like to use a *******ised version of the zone system.
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I was thinking about this last night, Jim :). I have three Nikon SLRs, any one of which, when fitted with a 50mm f/2.8 lens, would offer a similar FOV to the 80mm MF lens on the C330. They are slimmer and lighter cameras than my D90 with it's mid-range zoom on, but don't offer the possibility of a 'preview' in the form of a digital photo :thinking:.

Having considered that (and the extra weight/bulk issue), I decided that a meter would be a more comfortable soultion - it was just a case then of deciding whether or not it was really worth buying a cheap (30 quid) one, or doing it properly and getting something more 'proven' :thinking:. As I should probably know by now, from my years of buying camera gear, it's better to 'buy right; buy once' ;).

Still, I appreciate your suggestion and may well end up doing just that, if my camera arrives before I have a light meter sorted out.
 
Knikki said:
HOWEVER with them being selenium they can fail after a while and would need to be refurbished which can be done for around the £35 mark.
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Have you got a link for that? There was a firm in west London that used to do Weston servicing, including replacement of the selenium cell, but they went out of business a couple of years ago.

I've got a couple too. One of them is inaccurate and the other is more accurate but has a cracked glass. It only cost me a tenner at a car boot sale, though.

That said, I've got a Sekonic L358 that I use most of the time.
 
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