Meet the Beast: Part I

I confess, I've been holding out on you all. That camera I keep talking about, my photographic tool of choice since before this blog began, the Mamiya RB67, has been lurking in the background of much of what I've written in the past, perhaps somewhat mysteriously for those of you not acquainted with its marvels. It occurred to me some time ago that introductions were in order by way of a few episodes devoted to this camera along with all the agony and ecstasy of using one. It's something I could write about any time though, so I figured I'd keep it in reserve for a day I found myself struggling to find a topic. Instead, finding myself once more struggling with the opposite problem of trying to decide which of several topics to tackle next, it occurred to me that if I was waiting for writer's block to occur I might never get to it. And so it was decided I'll wait no longer.

While I have always referred simply to my Mamiya RB67, for the sake of accuracy I should state I have the RB67 Pro S, the penultimate model in the evolutionary sequence of RB67 versions released as updates were introduced. Actually I have two of them. The first one I purchased in September of 2013, complete with lens, 120 back and waist level finder, for under $200. It had a few scrapes and small dings, along with some sort of purple paint stains in the leatherette covering of the finder, but was absolutely functional. Currently undergoing a bit of cosmetic surgery on my basement worktable, it was demoted to a backup role last July when I got my hands on a prettier body via an opportunity purchase. I was really just looking for a good deal online on a second 120 back when I came upon a back, body and waist level finder at a price that was around the high end of what others were asking for a back alone. How could I not?

Back when I was in my twenties the RB67 easily made my short list of cameras I most dreamed to own. In fact if I actually kept such a list officially it probably would have spent more than its share of time at the top. Hasselblads are probably the more typical dream cameras but at the time (though definitely not now) square format was a bit of a turn off for me. The RB67 was really the one and only camera that hit every spot on my checklist - it's a full-fledged SLR that shot big negatives just this side of large format. takes interchangeable lenses backs and finders, shoots rectangular format so no film gets wasted cropping squares (keeping the images square, who does that?) but doesn't require flopping the camera to the side of the tripod to shoot vertical images. The only thing that kept me from owning one at that time was that they were priced into the stratosphere, affordable only to those who could make money with them and the very rich. The thought of owning one was a pipe-dream, almost on par with the Ferrari I wanted. 

Time moves on and many things change while others do not. Ferraris have gone from being the apex symbols of social status so many lust after but can't hope to ever afford to carbon spewing monstrosities so many lust after but can't hope to ever afford. Meanwhile, in that same time period the Mamiya RB67 has gone from being a well engineered, supremely capable photographic instrument considered the exclusive purview of professionals and the most dedicated of wealthy amateurs, to being  a well engineered, supremely capable photographic instrument a schmoe like me can pick up on eBay almost as an afterthought. The cameras haven't changed, it's just the pros who used them now have to satisfy customers for whom even the minute it takes a Polaroid to develop isn't instant enough. Think of that next time you hear laments about how rough it is being a film photographer in the digital age.

So kit-wise at least, my photographic world is pretty rosy, but while I now own the 23¹⁄₂ year old me's ideal camera plus a spare, now that I'm twice that age (and nearly half again the mass) my thoughts about what constitutes an ideal camera have changed. As I previously hinted at for example, while I once considered it wasteful to shoot square negatives and later crop to a rectangular print, I now often crop rectangular negatives to square images. Yes the 6x7cm negatives are nice when I don't do this but on the whole I think I'd give that up for the benefits of 6x6cm square negatives including 12 rather than 10 exposures per roll, easier storage and the ability to fit one roll of film onto a single 8"x10" contact sheet. That would be so if everything else were equal, but there's something else to consider - providing that extra centimetre's worth of negative costs quite a bit in terms of sheer mass. As I've noted time and again in the past, the Mamiya RB67 is a big heavy camera, and I don't just mean big in the way a medium format camera will be big if you're used to 35mm, Consider this - I put my Nikon FM with a 50mm f/1.4 lens on the kitchen scale and got about 860 grams.  A Hasselblad 500C/M with 80mm lens, 120 back and waist level finder comes in at 1555 grams (source: www.photoethnography.com), a 695 gram penalty to go from 35mm to medium format. On the same scale my RB67, 127mm lens, 120 back and waist level finder comes in at 2596 grams, more than an extra kilogram compared to the Hasselblad, itself a solidly build medium format camera.

The truth is Mamiya designed the RB67 to be a studio camera, luggability was never high on their desired traits list. One thing that was high on that list however, given the importance of dependably in the high volume professional environment for which they were intended, was ruggedness, meaning they're entirely up to the task of outdoor use where conditions are often less than ideal so long as one is prepared to bear the extra load. And this enduring performance, combined with their once near ubiquitous presence in professional studios, mean there is still an ample supply of RB67s on the used market today. This, combined with the limited market appeal they have due to their bulk, make the RB67 the current champion on  the used medium format SLR market in terms of performance/price ratio if you're willing to bear the load.

Granted that can be a pretty big if and for many that alone is a deal breaker. After a largely successful year and a half of ownership it still gives me pause. Even if you leave size and weight issues aside there are things anyone looking at an RB system should take into account in terms of operational and system considerations as well as a few downright quirks. We'll have to leave those for next time however when I'll go into more detail about what it's like to actually operate one of these beasties.