I have a variety of medium format film cameras from TLR to point and shoot, but until recently, no SLR. Yes SLRs have advantages, but medium format examples are also big, heavy, noisy and vibrate when you fire the shutter, restricting hand-held shooting to the faster shutter speeds. I’ve never been tempted to get one. Until now.
Why does everyone want an SLR?
I’ve never understood the ubiquitous popularity of the SLR. I have nothing against them, they offer many advantages, but they seem to eclipse the many other camera formats. When I left school in the late 1970s I worked for a few months in the camera shop in my nearest big town. Many people came into the shop to buy an SLR. Talking to them about their photography it was obvious most of them would have used a compact rangefinder camera such as the Olympus 35RC far more, and got much better results from it. But they thought an SLR was a “proper” camera and they wouldn’t consider a small rangefinder without interchangeable lenses, even though they would get better quality optics for the money. Of course, had they invested in a variety of lenses and other accessories and learnt to use them, an SLR may well have given them greater creative possibilities, but few of them did. When the digital revolution happened, manufacturers such as Canon and Nikon replaced the film with a sensor and continued to produce SLR cameras despite the fact that a moving mirror and optical viewfinder aren’t really necessary for digital photography, as mirrorless camera systems are finally starting to prove.
Why do I want an SLR?
Since my return to film photography, I’ve not really been interested in SLRs. I had an Olympus OM4 Ti with a variety of lenses, but found 35mm image quality wasn’t really up to the standard I want, so I sold it all to buy a medium format TLR. I then added a folding Nettar, a Fuji “point and shoot” and a Mamiya 6 rangefinder. These meet most of my needs but there were a couple of genres where an SLR is a better option. This was brought home to me on a recent trip to photograph Early Spider Orchids; whilst it is possible to focus really close with a Mamiya C330f it’s not very practical for subjects like small wild flowers, as my previous blog explains. The other genre where my cameras struggle is some types of landscape work; none of them are easy to use with a polarising filter or a graduated neutral density filter.
A choice, a problem and a solution
I finally decided to get a medium format SLR, but which one? I wanted square images not 6x4.5 despite having fond memories of my first medium format SLR, a Mamiya 645 1000s which I bought in the early 1980s. My love of landscape photography meant it had to be smaller and lighter than a Mamiya RB67, excellent though they are. Ideally, something lighter than my Mamiya C330f would save my back, too. I eventually settled on a Bronica SQ and chose the Ai version because they are the most recent, have a B setting which is useful for long exposure landscape work, and being plastic, are slightly lighter. I bought one with the waist level finder, AE prism finder and a set of auto bellows from Second-hand Darkroom Supplies, about whom I knew nothing, but they had what I wanted in stock. The price was a little high, but the items were almost mint and boxed. The gear arrived quickly and was very well packed. Sadly, testing with the bellows revealed a problem, the shutter would frequently fire a very short exposure (probably the 1/500th mechanical speed) rather than the 4 seconds or so I had set. It didn’t happen every time, but quite often, and almost always if mirror lock was used, as it would be for macro work. I sent the bellows back and received an immediate refund, full marks for service and I can recommend Second-hand Darkroom Supplies without hesitation. I then bought a set of auto bellows from Japan on the well-known auction site and was amazed they arrived within a couple of days, and I was very pleased they worked flawlessly. I also picked up another back, 50mm and 150mm PS lenses at good prices from West Yorkshire Cameras. I've used them before and they offer friendly service and good value.
Testing the camera without a back so I could see what was happening I found it would still sometimes fire at 1/500th instead of the exposure I had set, though not with the regularity it did with the first set of bellows. I found that if I held the camera with my finger under one side of the battery cover, the battery test lamp would not light or would go out if lit so there was clearly an intermittent connection. I think cleaning the battery contacts (there was a little corrosion on one) and packing the batteries with thin card has fixed this, modern batteries are apparently often about half a millimetre thinner than they were in the 1980’s and this can cause connection problems. More rolls of film will tell!
What next?
Having done all of that I’m delighted with the results from the first test roll of Ilford FP4+ and am very much looking forward to shooting more landscapes and macro shots with it. It’s nice to be able to see the result of attaching a polarising filter or graduated neutral density filter. I’m less keen on the view changing colour when using an orange or red filter to enhance the clouds; using TLR and rangefinder cameras I’ve got used to the view being unaffected by these! I have a specific project in mind for the Bronica and will share details on this blog soon. Here is my first macro shot, taken at very nearly 2x magnification it shows 3cm x 3cm of the crust of a loaf of bread. You can see the full-size scan on Flickr, too. To my astonishment, this black and white quick test grab just made it into Flickr Explore, the "most interesting" 500 images uploaded that day!
