Cost of Medium Format Film

[Horace]

Good to hear that. I am based in Sweden right now so anything that I can get shipped from Europe means no or lower chase of paying customs duty for it. There are a lot of USSR-ish sounding brands that I have never heard of, so it was good to hear that Lubitel is a good brand. I am now looking at something like this:

1981! Rare LUBITEL-166B *LOGO in Russian* TLR Medium Format 6x6 LOMO Camera #39

Do you have close up crops of your Lubitel samples?

 

[petrochemist]

Good advice about the air tight box.

What are your box style cameras? The ones on eBay that are TLRish prices are Kiev 6C and Mamiya Six which is a folder. Does the folder focuses by moving the film forward and backwards? Are they less reliable than non folding ones since it is an extra thing to go wrong.

I've got a Kodak Brownie (£5), an Ensign Ful-Vue II (£5 - TLR style but with fixed lens & ideal for 'Thru The Viewfinder' shots) and the folding Agfa Billy Record (£1 at a boot sale). I've seen other copies of the first two locally for ~£20 in charity shops since buying mine.

The bellows on the folding models are more prone to light leaks, but otherwise they're fairly reliable if extremely basic. I doubt any of my digital cameras will work as well when they're 60+ years old!

Here's my Ful-vue TTV (before I cleaned the viewfinder):
Dedham church TTV by Mike Kanssen, on Flickr

 

[limr]

Good to hear that. I am based in Sweden right now so anything that I can get shipped from Europe means no or lower chase of paying customs duty for it. There are a lot of USSR-ish sounding brands that I have never heard of, so it was good to hear that Lubitel is a good brand. I am now looking at something like this:

1981! Rare LUBITEL-166B *LOGO in Russian* TLR Medium Format 6x6 LOMO Camera #39

Do you have close up crops of your Lubitel samples?

Nothing at the moment because I'm at work, but I'll do some crops when I get home.

The camera you linked to looks like a good deal.

 

[gsgary]

When you workout how much it costs to shoot digital, film costs no more and you get a new sensor every time you load a new film
Mamiya C330 + 80mmF2.8 lens, shot wide open F2.8

And a crop of above

 

[Horace]

I also found this Kodak Duaflex at a very low price at a local eBay type of site. Was wondering if this is a good starter camera.

Kodak duaflex

 

[gsgary]

I also found this Kodak Duaflex at a very low price at a local eBay type of site. Was wondering if this is a good starter camera.

Kodak duaflex

Don't buy it that is not a camera for a beginner you will have to adapt 120 film or re roll it onto 620 reels because 620 film is not produced any more make sure it is a camera that will take 120 filom

 

[petrochemist]

I also found this Kodak Duaflex at a very low price at a local eBay type of site. Was wondering if this is a good starter camera.

Kodak duaflex

I wouldn't consider it a 'starter camera'. It's old enough to be without any aids including the lightmeter. It will be VERY basic with 2 shutter speeds (I & B). It doesn't look to be one of the focusing models, which suggest it's the 75mm f15 model (fixed aperture).
If you're sure you want to shoot MF film, it should enable you to do so. Like my Brownie, it's doubtful the lens quality will be good enough to gain anything from MF . It might be fun to play with, but I wouldn't expect quality images.

As a starter camera one of the many point & shoot digital cameras that people can hardly give away would be fine. I've seen working 5MP cameras for £3 - people generally don't need them as their phone fulfills the same role.

 

[minicoop1985]

For a beginner camera, I would HIGHLY recommend a Kodak, Zeiss, Franka, or other folding 6x9 (the Franka Rolfix does both 6x6 and 6x9 with adapter plate). They tend to have more options for shutter speed and aperture other than "I" and "B" and 1-4 (who knows what those aperture settings even mean...).

 

[limr]

Folders are great and all, but they're fussy and sometimes they have issues with the film not lying nice and flat.

Good to hear that. I am based in Sweden right now so anything that I can get shipped from Europe means no or lower chase of paying customs duty for it. There are a lot of USSR-ish sounding brands that I have never heard of, so it was good to hear that Lubitel is a good brand. I am now looking at something like this:

1981! Rare LUBITEL-166B *LOGO in Russian* TLR Medium Format 6x6 LOMO Camera #39

Do you have close up crops of your Lubitel samples?

Here are some samples. First, here's the full version (resized to upload - the original scanned at only 1200 is 1.42 MB.)

I cropped the small boat in the background on the left side of the frame:

Here's another more recent one. Full image (again, resized to make it easier to upload. Scan is 1.94 MB)

And a crop from the middle at 100%:

 

[Derrel]

I'd look into a low-priced twin lens reflex as a good compromise between price, portability, and the likelihood of the camera actually taking 120 rollfilm AND having a functional shutter and a properly working film advance system, along with the camera actually being a decent shooter. Yashica-Mat 124G, or a somewhat newer Seagull would likely, either one, to be in working shape and priced so that the car break-in will not be devastating.

LOVE that double Chrysler building shot, Leonore....wow...what an awesome shot!

 

[vintagesnaps]

I = Instant, B = Bulb - at least that's my understanding. Instant as in, take the picture now using a particular shutter speed rather than use the timer. Bulb as in use an old bulb style cable shutter release to hold the lens open for long exposures. Or sometimes the camera was marked T for Time, same thing, long exposures (I guess Time meant how much time you wanted to spend holding the shutter open).

 

[Horace]

I think the lens quality is important to me. Yes this is partially supposed to be a learning exercise for me but the results need to be easily noticably better than what I get with APS-C digital. Otherwise it would feel like a big waste of time afterwards.

With that said, in the lower price range, the cameras I see are box, plastic holga-ish types, folders, and TLRs. In that ascending price order. I see this folder here which seems ok but I have never heard of the brand or model.

Zeiss Ikon - Mess Ikonta - Kanonskick & testad med film!

Here's the translated description:
A very nice Zeiss Ikon Mess Ikonta sold. See pictures! Has just taken a roll with it with very good results! Would like to say that all the time, even the longer reasonable. 1 sec is perhaps a little longer, but stable. The aperture works fine and the bellows is tight! Mätsökaren, which gives the camera the additional name of "Mess", also shows the reasonable distance.

Grab a bargain a compact between the shape makers that take great pictures! Moreover, it is really nice and looks good on the shelf between the rounds photo!

 

[Derrel]

Zeiss-Ikon was a major producer of folding rollfilm cameras at one time. The Ikonta series was well-regarded and ran for many years, spanning several decades. The "Mess" series had an uncoupled rangefinder, as I understand it. The camera in question has a fairly simple, Novar three-element lens and a shutter that tops out at a rather slow speed. Expecting that this camera model will give markedly better photo quality than a modern, APS-C d-slr is, I think, kind of doubtful, really. Film needs to be shot, developed, and then scanned, and possibly printed. I think it's doubtful that a 60 year-odl, three-element lens in a folding body is likely to be able to out-resolve a modern d-slr with a rigid body. Film flatness, film curl, body alignment, lens issues...all those things could be issues with a 1950's-era folder. Not saying the photos would be bad, or garbage, or junky...but there is more than just the camera and lens in getting a film image to a viewable image, such as the scanner, the software running the scanner, and the operator who is using said scanner and software, and then the post-proicessing of the scanned image. This is whyI don't really think you'd be able to buy a 1950's folder with three-element lens and get images that are clearly noticeably better than what you could make with a modern APS-C camera and a decent, modern, multi-element lens.

 

[petrochemist]

I = Instant, B = Bulb - at least that's my understanding. Instant as in, take the picture now using a particular shutter speed rather than use the timer. Bulb as in use an old bulb style cable shutter release to hold the lens open for long exposures. Or sometimes the camera was marked T for Time, same thing, long exposures (I guess Time meant how much time you wanted to spend holding the shutter open).

IIRC the T setting on my older shuttered lenses opens the shutter with one press of the trigger & holds it till there's a second trigger. Effectively giving the equivalent of a locking remote.

 

[Horace]

Zeiss-Ikon was a major producer of folding rollfilm cameras at one time. The Ikonta series was well-regarded and ran for many years, spanning several decades. The "Mess" series had an uncoupled rangefinder, as I understand it. The camera in question has a fairly simple, Novar three-element lens and a shutter that tops out at a rather slow speed. Expecting that this camera model will give markedly better photo quality than a modern, APS-C d-slr is, I think, kind of doubtful, really. Film needs to be shot, developed, and then scanned, and possibly printed. I think it's doubtful that a 60 year-odl, three-element lens in a folding body is likely to be able to out-resolve a modern d-slr with a rigid body. Film flatness, film curl, body alignment, lens issues...all those things could be issues with a 1950's-era folder. Not saying the photos would be bad, or garbage, or junky...but there is more than just the camera and lens in getting a film image to a viewable image, such as the scanner, the software running the scanner, and the operator who is using said scanner and software, and then the post-proicessing of the scanned image. This is whyI don't really think you'd be able to buy a 1950's folder with three-element lens and get images that are clearly noticeably better than what you could make with a modern APS-C camera and a decent, modern, multi-element lens.

I found a local store that does development for quite a good price so I think in the beginning I will not do the development of the film, and all the steps that goes after it, myself.

With that being assumed, what would you consider to be the entry level camera that can outdo a modern APS-C digital camera noticeably?