Mamiya C330 Professional f

I just bought a Mamiya C330 Professional f and I discovered that

there is no way I can set the film ISO speed. Is this normal? Does

the camera automatically determines the film speed? Thanks alot!

Unless you have a prism finder with a meter in it, you are out of luck. You will need to find a good hand held meter for your photo expeditions.

 

Nice camera though.

 

tim C220 in san jose

Since the camera has no built in light meter, it doesn't care or need to know what speed film you are inserting.

I used to use one of those years ago.

Just buy a nice light meter and use it every where you go. I used to!!

Yep, that is right, no meter in the c330 so the camera doesn't need to know what film speed you are using. If you want to remember what film speed you have in the camera you can put a film memo in the holder on the back of the camera. I use a sekonic 358 meter with these cameras and it works great for incident metering. FWIW, since I started using a handheld meter and got used to it, I tend to always use one even when a camera has a meter in it. That way, my meter is always consistent and I only have to get to know one meter. BTW, these are great cameras.

Good cameras,but they weigh a f--king ton!

If you find you don't like your c330 i am sure there are tons of people here who would take it off your hands

I know in my Mamiya and also a graflex back that I forget the film type and speed. Attach a piece of tape on the camera where you can write the specifics and then you won't be constantly caught metering for the wrong speed.

How feasible is it to shoot hand-held with a C330?

"How feasible is it to shoot hand-held with a C330?"

 

Very feasible. I think I shoot most of the time with this camera handheld. I have a thick padded neckstrap that holds the camera chest high and I look down to focus and shoot. People never know I am photographing them. In fact the only person who knew I was shooting came up to me and wanted to look at the camera. Turns out she was a photographer herself and was thinking about buying a TLR. There is no mirror slap because the lenses are all leaf shutter and there is only a small click when the shutter goes off. I have a 330f, 330, and 22 but only one of them has a maxwell screen in them and that makes it so much easier to focus in lower light.

With the larger negative size, you can easily get away with using faster films. With candid shooting I typically use 400 speed film and occasionally push it to get at least 1/250th.

I have successfully hand held mine down to 1/4 second and 1/8 doesn't scare me at all. Because there is no moving mirror and also because of the positions that you can hold them, you can get very steady with a TLR. Hold it against you chest, or stomach, and lean against a wall and you are almost as good as a tripod, the only source of vibration is your beating heart, having a bit of a belly can help dampen that out. One huge plus for the Mamiya TLR's is the lenses, I have NEVER had a bad one, every one is razor sharp. I also have a Pentax 6x7 that someday I will sell, the Pentax has never come close to the sharpness of my TLR's.