ufgrat

I have the Mamiya C33, which has the side-mounted release, and I thought I would hate it-- but reality is, you cradle the camera in your hands, and that side-mounted release works really well with your right thumb.

The chimney finder is pretty big, but yeah-- I've got the prism finder as well. Actually, if it were my picture, it would have the honkin' huge 80mm f/5.6 on the front. There's always this:

Bah. The RB67 is a tiny point-and-shoot compared with the GX680: (Not my picture, as I only have a GX680 and a C33)

At the moment, I've got a 3D printed crank on my SQ-A, a 3D printed lens board on my 4x5, and a 3D printed battery box on my GX680. I've got a nearly indestructible 2-slot 120 film holder that's also 3D printed. A friend has a Chroma Carbon Adventurer 4x5, and about a third of it is 3D printed. At the end of the day, though, most home 3D printers are making plastic parts, and those have limits. Laser sintered is a bit more durable, but it's not going to match a CNC machined part. Gears and cogs are relatively easy to reproduce-- take an accurate photo while it's laid out on a gridded surface, load the photo into your favorite cad package, and start tracing. Once you've got the 2D part down, the 3D aspect is frequently just stretching out the 2D model. The problem is that you're tracing a worn, or broken part-- and that's where you need an expert who can come in and restore the 3D model to "new" condition so it can be machined, printed via sintering, cast, etc.. Jay Leno's restoration team does this sort of thing to replace broken car parts on a regular basis.

Mine uses a 357 silver oxide battery. Not tough to find. No magnification, per se, but the image is "larger", since you're effectively putting your eye up to the focusing screen. It's a little hinky since the eyepiece is hanging off the edge of the camera slightly, but it does work nicely as a spot meter.

Appears to be an add-on for the S2/S2A camera. Here's a video of one correctly(?) hooked up, but I don't think he demonstrates how to use it. This site 「Zenza BRONICA TTL Exposure meter」ブロニカＳ２用ＴＴＬメーターを付けてみた。 - 航海日誌=虚弱庵別館 documents using it, but the page is in Japanese... Browser translation produces something mostly usable.

Very impressive. I've thought about this issue, and came up with the idea of a paramender style filter holder-- screws (or clips) onto both barrels and allows the filter to be slid back and forth between the two lenses. That way you could even use circular polarizers-- adjust while the filter is in front of the viewing lens, and then slide it down in front of the taking lens still in the same orientation.

Getting a 90% approximation of reality is easy. We were doing that in the 1990's. The next 9% is tough. It's taken 20-30 years to get past the uncanny valley. The next 0.9% will be incredibly difficult, and won't be done with Blender, it will be done with AI driven algorithms. That last 0.1% will be phenomenally difficult, and won't replace "breaking news" or "here we are at the scene" photographs, or that amazing catch in the endzone in the last 2 seconds of the game. That still image may be a single frame from an 8K video, but so far, most sports and wildlife photographers are swinging big glass on the front of a still camera. Such pronouncements remind me of "Video Killed the Radio Star"-- which I hear on the radio (aka streaming audio service) far more often than I see online.

I had pretty much concluded the same, except I'm reasonably certain all that is on the surface. Then again, I have the lens in hand, and can do a better visual inspection than I can capture with a camera. I had considered the idea of trying to polish it, since it *does* appear to be a flat element, but that's for a rainy day when I've got nothing better to do than destroy a lens element :) Still, I don't feel too bad-- I got a case, a fully working shutter, and 2 pretty fair front elements. Actually, the lens works far better than expected, as long as you don't have any sun coming into the lens. If I can find a 135mm with a busted shutter, I'm good. Thanks to all of you for the time and advice given.

So noted. The middle unit in the second picture is where the problem is, inside the cup: The white specks are probably dust or lint-- both rear elements are like this, and I think I took a photo of the one I haven't tried to clean. I'm sure it's fungus, just don't know how permanent it is. I'll seek out stronger (and fresher) peroxide tomorrow.

Having only recently encountered LUT's, I was looking at various packages, and ran across this one which looks interesting: LUT Generator - Export LUT from Lightroom presets, Camera Raw and more It appears to be able to generate a 'default' image that you can import into the application of your choice, do your adjustment(s), export the modified image back, and create an instant LUT .cube file from the modified image.

I've noticed, and this may be a complete coincidence, that the two lenses that didn't come with a leather case, are nice and shiny. The 135mm which came in the original leather case... well. Its a small sample size. :) How hard is it to remove the rear element from the housing? I can get the rear housing loose, that's no problem... but was considering stronger solutions, most of which would damage what appears to be a plastic mounting. I'm fairly certain I'm looking at the right surface-- when I wet just that surface, the haze vanishes. When it dries, the haze returns.

So after a fairly good track record buying lenses off of "that" auction site, I won an auction for a 135mm f/4.5 chrome-shutter lens. The seller said "light haze". I'm glad I didn't pay very much, because when I first examined the lens with a strong light, it didn't look bad. Then I changed angles, and now I know what "strong haze" looks like. Both rear elements have a nearly uniform coating of haze across the "inside" rear element (the flat surface facing the front element). The viewing lens has had mild fungus at some point, but enough to etch the coating. So far, I've tried lens cleaning fluid, mild peroxide, alcohol (basic 70% isopropyl) and of course, glass cleaner. I didn't want to overdo it, I'd rather under-clean than damage the element. So far the only result is a mocking silence as the cleaning fluids dry up, and the haze returns. :) Any suggestions?

Personally, I'm a fan of the duck-billed platypus of the camera world, the Mamiya TLR (C33). It's big, it's heavy, it's clunky, and it feels like someone wedged a large format camera into a shoebox, took away the useful bits (the movements) and added a second lens. The shutter release lever feels like it was bolted on at the last minute and having to turn the camera around to change the shutter / aperture settings is... "quaint". But it takes fantastic pictures, and the ability to focus close-up, and swap out lenses, is great. Given the dents in the WLF that came with mine, my guess is it was either dropped, or stepped on. Doesn't matter-- neither would harm the camera in any significant way. I was able to build up a kit with an 80mm, a 105mm, and a 180mm (and a CdS prism viewfinder, which seems to work surprisingly well) for around $400 USD. I also picked up (*really* cheap) a 135mm lens, but the rear elements have so much haze it makes Beijing look like a clear sunny day. It's not the camera for everyone, but it appeals to me in a brute force, over-the-top kind of way.