620 film is still available as is 110. Those were the ones that surprised me.
Not only is 120 still available it's not really that expensive, 5 rolls with
shipping was less than $32. I bought 5 different ones to play with. I plan to
shoot them in some vintage Kodak Brownie cameras for that old timey look and
feel, just normal people out shooting with a 100+ year old camera...
-Curt
On Wednesday, August 18, 2021, 12:40:25 PM EDT, dan penoff.com via Mercedes
<mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
Long-time Mamiya guy. Mainly M645, dabbled in the RB67 but never wanted to
invest in the platform as it was really expensive at the time.
The M645 was like a 35mm SLR on steroids. It handled in a similar manner,
yielded a large frame (6mm x 4.5mm) which was great for the landscape
photography I liked to do, and the system was expansive and affordable.
I had several Yashica 120 TLRs, all of which did a good job for a manual medium
format camera.
The real beauty of the M645 platform and the main reason why I preferred it was
the availability of removable backs. I could load backs with B&W, color
negative and Ektachrome or Kodachrome and be able to swap them out on the fly
based on what I wanted to shoot and the image I wanted to attain. You can see a
number of photos I shot with this setup on my website at
http://penoff.com/Photos.html
K&H Photo used to be a great place to snag medium format gear at a very good
price, and their rating system is super conservative. I happened to look the
place over a week or two ago when I was cleaning up my bookmarks and there
seems to be little in the way of used medium format gear around. Not sure if
they’re just not actively buying/selling much any more, or if there’s simply no
demand and as a result no market.
I’m surprised 120/220 film is readily available any more.
-D
> On Aug 18, 2021, at 12:27 PM, Jim Cathey via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
> wrote:
>
>> So tonight I ordered up 5 rolls of 120 film
>
> Medium format excels at enlargements. I took a photo class with a friend
> once,
> I had a Mamiya C330 and he had a Minolta 35mm. We were photographing the
> same subject matter. I wanted to blow up one corner of a frame, he said it'd
> be grainy. It was not, he was amazed at how well it enlarged. (This was a
> darkroom class we were taking.)
>
> Sort of a variant of the old automotive "No replacement for displacement."
>
> The Mamiya TLR's lenses are decent, but not spectacular. I have another old
> folding Zeiss Ikon 120 camera that is really cool, but the lens on it is
> truly mediocre.
> You'd get better results from any average 35mm SLR camera. I have a plastic
> Diana 120 fixed-focus camera that would be even worse than the folder. I've
> never 'wasted' a roll of film in it, though.
>
> I shot a couple of family weddings with the Mamiya, B&W and with a Sunpak 622
> potato-masher combust-a-cat flash when necessary. Quantum turbo battery. A
> real beast of a flash setup. Once I shot a roll of 120 color slide film,
> just for fun.
> BIG slides. This was all some time ago. Somewhere I scared up a roll of 120
> Kodachrome, but it can no longer be processed. I lost track of the roll of
> film.
>
> The Mamiya TLR is outstanding for IR photography. All metal, with a separate
> viewfinder lens so you can put a black #87 IR filter on the taking lens and
> still frame
> and focus normally. Just have to watch the standard TLR parallax issues, and
> remember the standard IR focus compensation.
>
> I took old-timey portraits of my (now-deceased) parents with the Mamiya, I
> printed
> them on 16x20 paper and they got mounted in old oval glass frames my mom had
> found somewhere. That session there were some straight poses, and some gag,
> like the 'American Gothic' pose. Good times...
>
> -- Jim
>
>
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