rdenney wrote in post #5658803
Medium format stuff is relatively cheap on the market right now, and there's no real need to go with an ultra-basic camera unless you want to.
Here' s my MF lineup, just to tell you where I'm coming from:
Mamiya C33, C330ProS, with 55, 80, 135, and 180 lenses. The C33, and a C3 before it, shot many, many weddings in the old days.
Rolleiflex MX Type 2 (read: Old)
Exakta 66 and a Pentacon Six, with Ukrainian 30 fisheye, 45, 80, 90, and 120 lenses, East German 50, 80, 120, 180, 300, and 500 lenses. These cameras are finicky, but can really deliver the goods when everything works right.
Kiev 60 (I have three of them) that are cheap crap but fit the above lenses and don't cause heartache if they go in the ocean.
Kiev 88CM, the closest thing I have to a Hasselblad, but close enough to tell me that I don't need interchangeable backs and the complexity that adds. This one was extensively rebuilt and is pretty smooth and reliable.
Pentax 645N, and 645NII with 75 LS and 45-80 zoom, plus I can adapt the ex-Soviet lenses.
Pentax 6x7 with 45, 55, and 90 lenses.
I've done commercial work with all of the above except the Kiev cameras, but now the smaller Pentax is my preferred commercial camera (I don't do much commercial work any more). I use the 6x7 for fun.
I use a Nikon 8000-ED scanner, and the results I get is better in every way to what I get from my digital cameras (including the 5D). The 645's are a bit better than the 5D, and the 6x7 is more noticeably better. But the difference in convenience, portability, and ease of getting through airport security without fogged film is enormous. I had the 6x7 in Alaska last summer and nearly all the film was fogged by the airport X-ray.
In terms of price, if you want equipment in good condition, expect to pay a bit more. Much MF equipment has done hard commercial duty and it's possibly worn out. This is especially true of the Mamiya C-series TLR's, which went out of production 15 years ago and which were generally used in hard service. Both of mine now need to be repaired.
I prefer cameras with focal-plane shutters for two reasons: 1. The lenses are cheaper and lighter, and 2. I only have to learn the quirks of one shutter instead of a different shutter in every lens. My large-format lenses all have little notes on them providing shutter correction factors, and that's a pain. Only the Pentaxes in my collection have electronically controlled shutters, and I do have a leaf-shutter lens for the 645 for use when needed to synch a flash outdoors.
A 6x7 with a lens and a prism in good condition will be under a grand. Ditto for a 645 in good condition. Both are wonderful cameras to use, in my opinion--I particularly like the exposure automation used in the 645N, which is quite intuitive.
Hasselblad bodies are cheap, but when you start adding up lenses and backs, they get expensive in a hurry, even now. And they are also subject to needing expensive CLA and repair because of hard commercial use. With a Hasselblad, every lens has a shutter and therefore every lens will need to have the shutter CLA'd regularly.
Beware that 120 film is getting harder to buy locally. I now have to buy it from New York and store it in my freezer. And processing is even worse. Even processors that have the equipment often won't do it, because the film gathers up the schmutz that collects on the rollers of the machines outside the boundaries of the usual 35mm film, and they won't take the time to open it up and clean it just for one customer. So, I'm now mailordering the processing, too, and I don't like it. Of course, if you are targeting black and white, you can do the processing yourself, but expect to have to mailorder the chemistry.
My bottom line is that when I travel by wheeled vehicle, I take the 5D kit and the 6x7 kit. When I travel by air, I take only the 5D. When I shoot locally, I pick up the camera that calls me at the moment. On those now rare occasions when I do commercial work, I let the client decide if they want digital or film.
Rick "acknowledging the painfully long scanning work flow with film, but often finding it worth the trouble" Denney
