On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

Gary e-mailed me after I started the C330F Review (which I hope to finish tonight) with regard to this gem of a medium format camera. Well, he has a great blog himself looking at photography from the world of Mamiya.

As I have grown very fond of my C330F, there is a chance I’ll also invest in a 6×7 system such as the Mamiya RB/RZ67. Click the logo to follow on to his great blog:

He’s also the US distributor so why not check out www.mamiya.com whilst you’re at it?

Part Two – Twin Lens Quirks and Revelations

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So what is the Mamiya C330 or the C series in general? They are Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) cameras which means as the name suggests they have two lenses. One of the lens is the one you view through and the second lower lens is the one that is the taking lens (i.e. with the shutter that exposes the film behind it.)

This leads to a few interesting quirks. The first advantage of a TLR is that you can see virtually what you are taking a picture of as you take it. This has some distinct advantages for long exposures and portraiture where you want to be sure the person/people had their eyes open at the time of exposure. The second advantage is that compared to some medium format systems the Mamiya TLRs are cheaper than other interchangeable lens counterparts like the Bronica ETR, Mamiya 645, Pentax 645 (6×4.5 cameras) and the Bronica SQ and Mamiya 6/7 (6×6 cameras.)

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Part One – To Medium Format and Beyond… for sixty quid…

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To most people, film is 35mm. In fact for most people, it never enters their mind that there is anything beyond their digital compact, their 35mm camera or indeed something beyond, “one of those fancy SLR things.” Mention medium or large format to most people and they will go, huh?

In case you are one of those, think of a piece of film like a piece of paper. With 35mm, imagine sketching a landscape on that size of paper? It’d lack a lot of detail and the only way to pack more into that sketch would be to make the pencil ever sharper (my analogy to ISO/ASA speed.) If you enlarge that piece of paper from 1 by 1½-inch to say 2 ½ by 2 ½-inches you can make a more detailed sketch of the landscape because you have more room, even without using the sharpest of pencils. And the same happens again when you move from medium format to large formats like 5×7, 8×10 and so on.

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This will be a short post as I am tired and need to get some kip.

I recently acquired a Mamiya C330F Twin-Lens Reflex medium format camera. That is a camera that takes an image on a frame larger than 35mm format in a very crude definition. In the case of the Mamiya TLRs that’s a square 6×6cm image, which is over double the size of a 35mm frame. The bottom line is purportedly better image resolution.

I acquired the C330f, a Cokin A adapter especially designed for the Mamiya, the 80mm f/2.8 and 55mm f/4.5 lenses for well, under £150. Seriously good bargain especially as it all has 12 months warranty.

First dabblings – Fulking Escarpment

First experiences with it properly were on Saturday where I went back to my favourite little local bit of Sussex (I have so many, but I’ll settle on one for now) – Fulking/Poynings/Summer Down and the South Downs Escarpment. (Note I didn’t mention Devil’s Dyke — too busy and the pub though a welcome sight when I walked the South Downs Way, is a bit of a blot on the landscape.) Give I haven’t found my spare camera strap I trudged up the steep escarpment slope with the C330f in one hand and it was not particularly easy going as I like my hands free when I am walking.

That said though, it was good working with it. I had it pretty much set to infinity focus and dabbled with metering according to the Sunny 16 rule. I also had my EOS 3 to confirm my estimates at shutter and aperture values — as it turns out I was pretty much bang on most of the time. A result!

After I went along the scarp slope for a while and the back again and down into Fulking for a pint of hoppy brew and read the paper (The Independent no less) in the latent summer sun. Great stuff.

Second Dabblings – Steyning Bowl

I have been looking after a friends house and cats whilst she was away in Cyprus so I was in East Worthing for over a week. That’s about 2.5 to 3miles away from where I am in West Worthing, which is a fair distance to add to a walk if you choose to explore the Downs towards Sompting Abbotts and to the east of Cissbury Ring.

So being as I was over the right side of Worthing that’s just what I did.

I have to say, it is just fantastic out that side of things, utterly beautiful and so peaceful. Largely this is because it’s quite cut off. You only have the Bostal Road from Steyning which touches down on the other side on the dual carriaged A27 bypassing Sompting. Otherwise there are no other roads and it just feels somewhat cut off. It’s a bit like a Devil’s Dyke Road without all the people and the nonsense

Anyway, it was a peaceful walk and again I was pretty much on the ball with getting right exposure off the top of my head (I think, by then I had moved onto Velvia 50 and I think I’ll have screwed up badly as that’s one tough cookie to expose.) At one point a couple of kids with their mum or something came up to where I was looking down the valley and the boy said, “Cool camera!” to which I just said “Yeah it’s an oldie but it does the job” – he said “That’s why it’s cool, it’s retro!”

I must remember the tat that I have is not tat nor is it old, it’s retro.

Once I had meandered slowly up the valley to Steyning Bowl (by now 5pm, I avoided the road you see which means some zig zagging) it was beautiful, warm but with a snap of September chill in the air. I also walked onto part of the South Downs Way that I had trudged along back on a very very hot day at the end of July on the Washington->Pyecombe leg. It felt so special to be back. And actually, I was really quite tearful. And no it’s not pathetic, it was a little bit of pride that this was part of the path I had accomplished something on, but also because I am so lucky to have such a beautiful part of the world within a stone’s throw of my home-town.

Alas the C330f was a joy to shoot with, even though something went very wrong with the Velvia I had loaded up. I managed to partially rescue it but I may only have 3 maybe 4 usuable frames as a consequence (I have no idea what happened, it just went wrong… it didn’t wind on properly etc.) Alas all was fine in the end and it was refreshing to slow down my shooting with such a camera.

I don’t expect masterpieces back this time, it’s more of a dummy run for exposure calculation.

Either way, walking back in the low golden September sun, I walked through the fields still abuzz with butterflies flitting through the cool blue air and it was just wonderful.

I have to say without a shadow of a doubt, that if the Lancing/Sompting/Worthing by-pass ever does resurface or happen, I’ll only support it through a tunnel or through its current path by bulldozing houses on the current route. Houses are temporary, but the landscape is too wonderful to savage with a road. It really is a special bit of Sussex in amongst the Brighton-Worthing-Littlehampton strip (supposedly the second most densely populated part of the country, population of almost half a million) that just feels like you could be miles from anywhere.

I’ll keep you posted of the results!

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