Mamiya C3, by Richard de Bulat
With a budget of £500.00 you have quite a lot to choose from with regard to film cameras, particularly if you stay with 35mm, but I thought it would be worth looking at medium format where there is a more limited choice, and I chose a kit that includes the Mamiya TLR C3, with 80mm lens, lens hood, Paramender and Porofinder, the last of which is the non-metered prism head.
The Mamiya TLR is a system camera with a range of not too expensive lenses that you can buy to extend the range of what you can use the camera for; adding various other bits of kit such as the Paramender which adjusts for any parallax error when taking close-ups and the prism head for taking eye-level shots rather than using the waist-level finder, makes sense, in the first instance.
I took a mixture of indoor, (sort of studio shots), and some outdoor shots in pretty inclement weather. One of the main advantages of the Mamiys TLR’s is that its bellows allows you to take close-up images without needing a macro lens; using the Paramender to lift the camera after framing and focusing means that the taking lens will be in line with the original viewing lens. The Paramender is not absolutely essential as you can compensate for the view by using marks on the focusing screen, but without the guaranteed accuracy that the Parender offers. The addition of a prism head has obvious benefits since you can use the camera like an SLR when you have one fitted. The metered prism will be more expensive, but I find that the standard Porofinder works well and I usually use a hand-held meter in any case.
Medium format cameras are bulky and the C3 is quite a weighty camera to carry around. Nevertheless, it can easily be used handheld, on a monopod or on a tripod for studio and landscape work. The 6x6 format means that the camera never needs to be turned on its side and can be used for just about any kind of photography work. It is solid, mechanical and generally reliable – a real workhorse, with a range of good lenses. The C3 lenses have to be manually cocked, but if you go up a couple of levels the C33 and C330f cock the shutter automatically when you wind on the film, but they cost somewhat more than the earlier C3.
I have used TLR cameras since the mid 80’s and continue to use them; while the Mamiya Cameras are bulkier and heavier than most Rolleiflexes and Yashica TLR’s, they are useful for a lot more photographic tasks, cheaper and in many ways more robust than medium format SLR’s such as the RZ 67, Bronica and even Hasselblad cameras. Alternatives to the C3 that you might consider are the Mamiya 645 and, if you look carefully, a reasonably decent Mamiya RB67, but you won’t be carrying that one around too much.
All things considered, a good C3 and the accompanying kit that I have suggested, offers good value and a system camera that you can build on with additional lenses and getting more advanced bodies over time. The C3 is a good entry into medium format photography.
