Where would you use medium format photography? eBay offers a variety of medium format cameras, such as the Bronica SQ camera in various models and affordable prices. Despite its age, medium format photography produces high-quality images that have found specialised niche uses in specific industries, such as fashion and studio photography. Medium format photography was a photography format commonly used in the 1940s and 1950s. At one time, I had three 6圆 SLR systems(S2a, SQ-A, and 500C), and have consolidated to the Hasselblad.Improve Your Medium Format Photography With Bronica SQ Cameras Even if you pay a higher initial price to buy into something like a Hasselblad, it's(relatively) easy to find someone to do at least basic service on them. Because of that, there's also a blind that has to pop in place over the mirror. When you press the shutter button, the mirror actually goes down rather than up as in most other SLRs. As I mentioned above, these cameras have a LOT going on in them.
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One of the issues with increasingly obscure cameras like the S2 is in parts availability and people who know how to work on them if something does break. The only weak link that I've encountered in the system is the light seals in the film back, which likely will need to be replaced. The shutters are electronic and don't really go out of time.
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The SQ series is a fair bit newer, and if you get an SQ-Ai you may luck into a camera that's only about 20 years old. IMO, the price sounds quite high considering that I sold my entire outfit for around $400 USD. Make sure you get the rear caps-they look about like a small bathroom or medicine cup. With that said, they are sort of awkwardly shaped. In addition, the lenses are lightweight since they dispense with a focusing helicoid and don't have a shutter in them. I had two examples-one that came with my main outfit and one that came in a separate lot, and both were terrible. The exception to this is the 13,5cm Nikkor, which was a 35mm lens designed for the SP rangefinder with a reflex housing and just happened to cover 6圆. The optics are MOSTLY excellent, whether you're using Nikkors or later Zenzanons. The S2a is supposed to be better in this respect.ħ. The S2 is known to have some weakness in the film advance mechanism. At the same time, the sync speed is 1/30.Ħ. It has a maximum shutter speed of 1/1000, which is better than you will find in a leaf shutter camera like an SQ or 500. The focal plane shutter is a blessing and a curse.
Even after taking the photo, you'll be rewarded with a few loud "clunks" when advancing the film.ĥ. In addition to the shake, it's a noisy beast.
I'm actually not sure if it comes more from the mirror or from the shutter, but you can feel it when you fire it-it's worse than a Mamiya RB67 or Pentax 67-I'd say it's easily the shakiest SLR(of any size) I've ever used.Ĥ. The amount of camera shake when firing the shutter is atrocious. There's a lot going on in it, and that translates it into weighing a lot more than a 500. Although it's small, it's a heavy beast of a camera. It's on the small side of 6圆 SLRs, and really closer in size to a Hasselblad 500/501/503 than an SQ camera(although the SQ series isn't that much larger).Ģ. With that said, the system looks really great on paper but it has some big things that make me dislike it.ġ. I consider it the benchmark 6圆 SLR, which is why I do that.
I'm going to make several references to the Hasselblad 500 series in the below list, and I hope you'll forgive that. It IS a good camera with some features that are unique to MF cameras of that price point, such as the instant return mirror and focal plane shutter.
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I owned an S2a kit for a while(5 lenses, 2 bodies, a few backs and inserts plus other odds and ends).