Help buying MF camera

I'm staying away from hassy, having never tried it for any significant time.

The system is much too complex to my liking. There's a possibility of shutter failure, back leaks, backs breaking, body breaking and everything in between. I was buying some filters off a wedding photographer and he described blads as a very expensive system with high maintenance costs.

So I'm currently shooting with a yashica TLR with a red window on the back. It's slower to rewind, but it won't break.

If I do more shooting, I'll get a rollei of some sort with the same zeiss planar and shoot with that.

I love the Hassy, no doubt about it. But if you were to get a different medium format SLR system that is handholdable, no doubt the Rollei would be right up with it. Rollei uses both Schneider and Zeiss glass, and being mostly a large format guy myself I happen to think that Schneider's lenses are second to none.

Notwithstanding your fears about Hasselblad, there IS a reason why it's been so popular and esteemed through all these years, and that is in large part because of the outstanding quality and reliability of the parts. And the good news is that it's very easy to get Hasselblads serviced, even old ones. There's a guy outside of Boston named David Odess who is extremely nice and takes orders from around the country to service (and clean / refurbish) Hasselblads. He does basically everything except the optics and electronics (of the newer systems). I've dealt with him once when I screwed up my shutter locking mechanism on the very day I bought my camera, and he guided me through the fix over the phone.

Paul, you got one sweet deal on your Hasselblad system. I have all Schneider lenses for LF and I love them but there are some very expensive alternatives that will blow your mind. To the other "doc" I used mine heavily for more than 25 years of pro shooting. I did have the lenses cleaned and reset to spec every two years, same for the backs and every three years for the bodies. In the whole time I used them I had one mainspring break in a body, one shutter leaf break in a lens, and 3 or 4 backs that I sent back for overlapping frames. All except parts were covered by the repairman's guarantee. Some of my friends with other cameras replaced their entire system 4 or 5 times in that time span. I think I got the better deal. Rollei is a great camera but it doesn't compare to Blad except IQ wise.

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5678460
I'm staying away from hassy, having never tried it for any significant time.

The system is much too complex to my liking. There's a possibility of shutter failure, back leaks, backs breaking, body breaking and everything in between. I was buying some filters off a wedding photographer and he described blads as a very expensive system with high maintenance costs.

So I'm currently shooting with a yashica TLR with a red window on the back. It's slower to rewind, but it won't break.

If I do more shooting, I'll get a rollei of some sort with the same zeiss planar and shoot with that.

You'll never break a hassey 500 series body. They're machined out of one piece of metal. I've owned and shot allot with all the major medium format cameras and Blads are by far the most reliable and they have the BEST GLASS

The system 500C 500 C/M couldn't be any more simple really. All manual. Shutters in the lens so you can sync at any speed. Nothin complicated bout that.

DrPablo wrote in post #5678915
I love the Hassy, no doubt about it. But if you were to get a different medium format SLR system that is handholdable, no doubt the Rollei would be right up with it. Rollei uses both Schneider and Zeiss glass, and being mostly a large format guy myself I happen to think that Schneider's lenses are second to none.

Notwithstanding your fears about Hasselblad, there IS a reason why it's been so popular and esteemed through all these years, and that is in large part because of the outstanding quality and reliability of the parts. And the good news is that it's very easy to get Hasselblads serviced, even old ones. There's a guy outside of Boston named David Odess who is extremely nice and takes orders from around the country to service (and clean / refurbish) Hasselblads. He does basically everything except the optics and electronics (of the newer systems). I've dealt with him once when I screwed up my shutter locking mechanism on the very day I bought my camera, and he guided me through the fix over the phone.

Rollei's are outstanding. I've actually been thinking about picking one up.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5679081
Rollei's are outstanding. I've actually been thinking about picking one up.

Rolleiflex? Or Rolleicord?

Karl C wrote in post #5679143
Rolleiflex? Or Rolleicord?

And then there are versions of each... it's a nightmare to pick one.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5679076
You'll never break a hassey 500 series body. They're machined out of one piece of metal. I've owned and shot allot with all the major medium format cameras and Blads are by far the most reliable and they have the BEST GLASS

The system 500C 500 C/M couldn't be any more simple really. All manual. Shutters in the lens so you can sync at any speed. Nothin complicated bout that.

I'll keep that in mind.

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #5679226
And then there are versions of each... it's a nightmare to pick one.

Before selling it to KEH, I used my dad's Rolleicord (Vb, I think). Great little camera however, I think the speeds were off. Or maybe it was just me screwing up the Sunny 16 rule.

I suspect the Yashica 124-G and Rolleicords are about the same. From what I know, the Rolleiflex's are very good TLR's.