MPP Microflex review
I regularly walk my workshop routes, looking for tweaks and improvements, so an ideal opportunity to run a roll through the Micro Precision Products, MPP Microflex. The Microflex is a sweet little TLR that has a classic look of its time, at first glance it is quite similar to others of its era but look closer and you see lines and shapes giving it a little bit of individuality.
Released in 1958 it proved to be the last TLR MPP released, at just about the same time the UK government relaxed import taxes from Germany meaning the unattainable Rolleiflex became attainable forcing MPP to sell at knock down prices. As is often the story, the Germans ability to maintain quality with high output has kept them on top off the precision engineering tree.
Anyway, the camera. Lifting the WLF you look down on to a gridded focus screen, not the brightest but not terrible. The grid not only helps composition but aids in the dreaded parallax error. A 6x6 image is reflected on to it by high quality lenses in the form of 77.5mm f3.2 top and f3.5 bottom Micronar lenses, Made by Taylor, Taylor & Hobson to MPP’s specification and are exclusive to the Microflex. The ones on this unit have a couple of light cleaning scratches but showed no affect to image quality. The bottom set sits on a Prontor shutter giving 1s – 1/300th, The usually annoying linked EV system is one of the easiest I have used, A simple press of a button on the shutter wheel releases it easily and the wide viewing window on top o the lens board displays all your options at a glance. Film advance is the common crank type, I got 12 nicely spaced frames from it, and there is also a shutter cocking switch for those liking multiple exposures. All straight forward, right? No! there is a quirk…
The Quirk – The camera is loaded pretty much like all TLRs, you expose your 12, take out your film and… and then it gets a bit weird. You either have to load your next roll, put in a dummy roll or remove the quick release door, why? closing the door sets the counter to 0, you then advance to 1. Do that without a roll in and you are out of sync. This requires a reset, meaning preloading the take up spool out of the camera to the red dot, all is then back to normal, I did this a few times to see, no biggy but definitely a quirk.
All in all, a very nice camera to use, solid and well built, compact and pretty. It is up there with my favourite TLRs, enjoy the images.
Plymouth Darkroom – Ashley.
Check out this camera on our TLR page
