help with focusing of mamiya C33

Recently I purchased a Mamiya C33 with a 80mm chrome lens. However

figuring out how it works with out the instructions took quite some

time (4hours). During the process of figuring it out I removed the

focusing screen which I think I put back correctly with the proper

spacers that were there to begin with. However I'm not sure if it is

focusing correctly and this is the reason. When I focus on objects

that are infinity or beyond the camera front does not go all the way

back to touch main body of the camera. Now I dont remember if it did

this before I took off the screen or not. I would rather not waste

film to figure this out as this will be my first roll through the

camera. There is a small space between the lens front of the camera

and the main body maybe 1.5mm when focusedon infinity if any one knows

if this is normal please let me know I was kind of thinking there

would be a little play but I'm just not sure. Also I was curious on

replacement screens to brighten things up. I know that they say the

focusing screen is not really replaceable and I have a custom large

format screen from Bill Maxwell that is very good but I don't want to

dump $300 into a screen for this camera at the present time so any

ideas on other replacements would be great. Any other helpful info

for this camera would be helpful as well as I would love to learn

more. I have the older C33 that does not have automatic shutter cocking.

There should be no focus error if you got all the shims back

where they were, assuming the focus was okay beforehand.

The most direct way to find out is to shoot some film at various

distances and see whether it's in focus. Or you can place a

ground glass at the film plane and compare image sharpness

with that on the focusing screen. This web site has a lot of basic

info on Mamiya TLRs:

 

http://www.btinternet.com/~g.a.patterson/mfaq/m_faq-1.html

I have a C3. I don't have an 80 mm lens, but looking at the distance scale on the side, it appears that when in the infinity position for both the 80 mm and 65 mm lenses, the front panel is not quite all the way back. I would say it is extended by about one mm.

 

You should do what has already been suggested. At one time I got a square of ground glass somewhere---I forget where, but it was not that hard to find---and I taped it to where the film goes. That way I was able to check consistency of focus.

John

Sorry I don't have the C33 I use a RB67. Here is a link to the mamiya older camera question forum. Hope it helps.

http://www.macuserforums.com/webx?14@132.yVCna31KeGM.2@.ee707e6

The varying bellows extension for infinity focus is normal. The most extreme case is the 135mm. One of the advantages of the bellows system is that it gives the lens designers a lot of freedom in design compared to a rigid helical mount. The down side is that one has to rack the lens out to focus after a lens change.

 

The older mamiya screens are not fantastic, and really benefit from excluding extra light. The standard finder for the C33 is not as good as the last version in this respect, and many people look for those or a chimney finder. Experiment with a focusing cloth to see the optimum performance of the screen, and live with the camera before deciding to change the screen. They have their quirks.

 

'I have the older C33 that does not have automatic shutter cocking.'

 

This intrigues me. The C3 is manually cocked, and the C22. As far as I am aware, all the C33 cameras were built for auto-cocking. It was a major sales feature.

Thanks for all the replies I think I probably over reacted because I was worried that I was missing a some shimms under the screen. This camera was a tricky one to figure out with out the instructions and in the process I broke the red parallax corrector because the lock and unlock feature for some reason decided to not unlock all the way forcing me to take off the screen because the red parallax corrector seemed to be what was holding things up(They are connected some how). I don't think it will be that big of a deal for most of my shooting and at some point I hope it will be an easy fix for a good repair person that has some cool about him. Once again thanks for all your responses!

You may be able to get an electronic version of the C33 (or C330 - it is close enough) manual from http://www.mamiya.com, or http://www.photonet.demon.nl/

 

There are two physical indicators in the finder - one (usually red) is the lock/unlock indicator for the film baffle, and the other is the parallax indicator.