Beginners Guide to a Bronica

As you've probably guessed by now, I love film photography, and medium format (or 120) is a particular favourite of mine. I've yet to use my twin lens Rolleicord, but i've had a lot of use out of my Zenza Bronica ETRS.

Unlike a lot of medium format cameras (such as Hasselblad, Minolta, and other Bronica's) the ETRS is not square format (6x6). The frame size of an ETRS is 4.5x6 which makes it rectangular. This is very useful when printing from the negatives, as the frame size is very similar to the 8x10 paper size and means that very little cropping of the actual image needs to be done. Bronicas are fairly easy to use once you've had some practice at loading the film, there's a few youtube tutorials which show you how to do it. This is one of them, although it suggests that you have to take the back off the camera in order to load the film which you don't necessarily need to do. This is a pdf of the instruction manual for a Bronica. The image at the top of the pdf looks slightly diffrerent from the previous image of the Bronica that I posted, this is because they have attatched a viewfinder which means that they don't have to look in the top of the camera to view what they are about to photograph which can make shooting a little easier (although I prefer the original method of viewing the frame), here is an example of what I mean:

and this is the viewfinder:

 

The instruction manual gives diagrams of what each part of the camera does. I have listed them below;

Medium format cameras have an excellent depth of field (or focal length), obviously depending on what type of lens is being used. My Bronica came with a standard 75mm fixed focus lens, which means that it does not have a zoom feature. I absolutely love the quality of the images it produces. I have used it for everything, from studio shoots to location. A roll of 120 film used in a Bronica allows you to take 16 shots, and this means that you have to carefully frame each image to make sure that you don't waste any. The image you see in the viewfinder will be back to front which can be confusing at first, but with some practice it becomes a lot less noticeable.

These are a few images taken with my Bronica ETRS: 

For more of my images taken with an ETRS see my flikr set.

The most common medium format cameras used in fashion photography are Hasselblads or Mamiyas which can be a little more expensive (particularly Hasselblads if in good condion) and if used today are mostly used with digital backs instead of film, which can be in excess of thousands of pounds. Some may argue that these are better quality cameras than those in the Bronica range, and although I am yet to have used any other types of medium format camera, the Bronica is something which I instantly fell in love with. I love the whole process, from loading the film to developing it in the dark room. It is an amazng process. Medium format photography is something which I think everyone who has an active interest in photography should try, and once they have, digital photography will never feel the same.