Bronica ETRSi Test Roll

I wanted to shoot more film this year, so I decided to find a new medium format camera. After some research, I chose a Bronica ETRSi. It shoots 120 film and what sold me on it was the fact that you can change out film as often as you like in the middle of the roll. Oh, and it also has an attachment to shoot Polaroid peel apart film. Score!

I found a great listing on Etsy where the entire lot was purchased from the estate of a pro photographer and was being sold as a set. This camera is pimped out! It has so many extras included, I actually feel pretty spoiled: Zenza Bronica ETRSi Body, Zenza Bronica AE-II Prism Finder E /w Instructions, Zenza Bronica speed grip, Zenza Bronica Zenzanon EII Lens 75mm f 2.8, Zenza Bronica Zenzanon MC Lens 50mm f 2.8, Zenza Bronica Zenzanon MC Lens 105mm f 3.5, Zenza Bronica 120 film back, Zenza Bronica 220 film back, Polaroid Land Pack film back E /w Instructions, Zenza Bronica 120 film cartridge with leather case, Zenza Bronica 220 film cartridge with leather case, Zenza Bronica Focusing screen E with box, (installed in camera), Zenza Bronica 2 Eye correction lens, one on camera, other in box. Take a look at my new baby!

My test roll of film was Ilford PANF50, which has beautiful tones. I sent the film out to my new buddies at Old School Photo Lab for processing and I tried out my new Canon 9000F Mark II Scanner. I need to play around with the dust removal settings, but I thought they came out pretty darn good. I'm excited to go back to some of my old negatives and scan them. I might even bring Throwback Thursdays back to the blog!

The Bronica is a tank of a camera and makes this awesome KUH-CHUNK! sound when you press the shutter. (Not so great when you want to use it at an acoustic concert, but otherwise very satisfying.) I had a little slip up at the beginning of the roll with the mirror lock up, so I lost a few frames, but otherwise, I'm totally smitten with this camera. I've added a close up filter to the 75mm lens and plan on playing with that next.

Yashica Mat 124-G Test Roll

I've always wanted a medium format camera, so I finally bought one from Joey, the amazing man behind Awesome Cameras. I put a test roll of Fuji Pro 400 in the camera, just to make sure the camera was in working condition, and attacked my friends. The battery for light meter in the camera was long dead and they aren't made anymore, but that didn't stop me from shooting. As I'm relearning the Sunny 16 rule, I brought along my EOS M as a back up meter. For the most part, my exposures were spot on, erring on the side of over exposed which is completely salvageable once the negs were scanned. Since I wanted the roll scanned quickly, I brought it to Milford Photo; development and scanning ran me about $20. I'll be looking for a better price online.

What I learned from the test roll was that I need to work a bit more on my focusing. I've definitely gotten spoiled by my SLR's auto focus. I learned that I'm not as steady as I once was with slow shutter speeds; the picture of Steve indoors has a bit of camera shake blur in it at 1/60th of a second. Some of my compositions are a bit off because I wasn't sure if what I was seeing in the view finder was what the camera would really take. There was a slight hiccup in the film winding after the first picture of Addy, which caused me to lose a frame at the end of the roll. Other than that, I really like the bokeh of the lens and was pretty happy with the results, especially in the picture of my mom.

 Donna (Hey, her sweater is sharply in focus)

 Mario (Way too much dead space)

 Steve (Slow shutter speed)

 River of Ice

 Addy 1 (With a slight light leak on the bottom of the frame during winding issues)

 Addy 2 (Poorly focused)

 Flowers

 Mom

Hurricane Lamp (how did I not notice the bottle of Alkalol in this shot?!?!)