A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about which medium format camera to buy myself for a Christmas present. At the time, I had narrowed my choice down to a few models and was deciding which I should settle on. Well, after a lot of deliberation, internet research, pouring over specs and countless online searches for second-hand cameras, I finally made a decision and a couple of days ago I bought a Bronica ETRsi 645 format camera.
Pictures of the Bronica ETRsi
As I was deciding which camera to get, one of my initial 'requirements' disappeared from the list. It became apparent that I didn't need film backs which would take 220 film because it turns out that 220 film, although twice the length of 120 film, is about 3 times the cost. That actually didn't really influence the choice because it wasn't a decisive factor in any of the models' favour, but it was still a useful fact to find out.
To be honest, after I'd done my research, any of the cameras I had on my shortlist would almost certainly have given great results and been a good choice, so in the end it mostly came down to a question of cost.
Although I could find examples of what appeared to be good cameras on eBay, I was a bit reluctant to spend a couple of hundred pounds on a second-hand camera from that site. My experience of buying fairly cheap cameras for my vintage collection from eBay has taught me that most people who sell on that platform don't know too much about the things they sell.
Another problem with eBay of course is that there is no proper guarantee (I know it's possible to return a blatantly faulty unit, but that doesn't always work because sometimes eBay sellers just disappear, and anyway I don't want to get into a long argument about 'working' v 'faulty'). Because of that, I was mostly looking at the camera stores to see what they had to offer.
It was a few days ago that I found an example of a Bronica ETRsi on the London Camera Exchange website for what I considered to be the amazing price of £150 for the complete kit of the body, 120 film back, 75 mm PE f/2.8 lens and waist level finder. Although that was a very good price for what looked to be an excellent quality unit, I found the same shop also had a speed grip, AE-II finder and 40 mm f/4.0 wide angle lens for only another £155, so I could get the whole kit for £305.
That seemed to be a fantastic price to me because I had seen just the camera in other shops for quite a lot more than that. A short phone call to their Nottingham branch resulted in me purchasing the unit, and it being packaged up and sent to me.
I received the package yesterday and spent most of last evening getting acquainted with my new camera. These are the things I've initially become aware of:
- Although the Bronica ETRsi is heavy and big, it's not as heavy and big as I thought it would be. I could imagine using it for a few hours at a time without too much effort.
- During my initial assessment of the camera a couple of weeks ago, I thought that the metered prism finder only gave a reading which needs to be transferred to the camera body. Although that is the case when in manual mode, when switched to Auto mode the camera does work in Aperture Priority mode.
- Having assembled and tried out the camera (without film so far) I think perhaps I'll use the waist level finder more than the prism finder. There just seems to be something particularly special about seeing images composed in the huge WLF.
- The critical focus magnifier on the WLF seems much more useful than the one fitted to my Lubitel 166 and looks like I might use it quite frequently.
- This is not a simple camera to use. There are quite a few steps that you need to go through each time to make sure you get a shot. I'm going to make myself a checklist to ensure I get it right.
- Loading film is a rather more involved procedure than with any of the other 120 cameras I have.
- The aperture ring on the 75 mm lens seems quite stiff to turn. Also, the depth of field preview button is easy to press as the aperture is being adjusted and since the handbook states that could result in damage that's a bit worrying
Although LCE gave the camera the once over, they have given me a month to check it out properly and included a film in the package for me to do that. My plan is therefore to shoot that roll carefully, noting the settings for each shot, trying to exercise all the camera's functions and try out each lens. Once I've done that, I'll post the results.
