MF for Wedding...What to USE?

[anton frid photography]

Hi Guys.. Quick question...

 

I do weddings using my trusted DSLR. I been wanting to try a bit of

Medium Format during few weddings. I am wondering if any of your use

or used MF during your weddings? What camera did you use? Is it to

much of a pain to handle during a wedding? Any of your used it as a

second body, if yes, when? Do you use it only during formal or

portiture shots?

 

Any advice would be great. My budget is around $500 and thus cant

really consider Hassy's or RZ's :) (expensive and big....but NICE!)

 

My search has lead me to Mamiya's 645, Bronica's, Omega Rapids...and

few Kiev 88. Any experience with any of them? I also love the M6 and

Pentax 67 which are just great. Would that work during a wedding?

 

Just as a side point, i am looking for a camera that would offer me

to do my wedding work, as well as a travel camera for those nice

Paris shots! :)

 

thanks

 

 

Anton

[link]

Years ago I shot video for a wedding photographer. He used a Hassy for special stuff

and most of the wedding, the handheld stuff, he shot with a Mamiya Press. It worked

well for stuff with the flash mounted on the camera and had interchangable lenses,

and more importantly, film magazines so that he could keep shooting with short

reloads.

 

I mention this, as you can get these cameras within your budget.

[ted_lopez]

I have use a Mamiya C330s Twin lens for years, They are really cheap now. Used it with a Vivitar 283. Vey easy to use.

[jay ott]

<i>"Is it to much of a pain to handle during a wedding?"</i>

 

I can't think of any wedding I've been to that the photographer did not use medium format or a DSLR, so my impression has always been that medium format is the preferred system for weddings. I bet you could even get good results with a TLR with a flash bracket and 220 film.

[william_au]

I have a Bronica ETRSi with speed grip. Pretty decent to handhold and move around with if you have to, though a prism with a meter then becomes much more handy. Still nowhere nearly as handy as a 35mm camera in terms of mobility, handholdability, and the mirror slap is loud! Maybe a MF rangefinder would be better. I mostly keep my MF on the tripod - at the back of the church/balcony during the ceremony, and for formals. Much prefer to use 35mm for everything else, and often leave the MF home now unless I know the couple wants big enlargements or there will be really big group shots. Still, nothing like getting big enlargments done from MF negs...

 

I can recommend the ETRSi - less expensive than most of the other brands but still good construction, full lineup of accessories, and leaf shutter lenses (good for high speed fill).

[rob_sato]

I use and recommend the Bronica SQ series. Hassies still cost more even with depreciated prices on the used market. I see a used package

at Keh.com with the following:SQ-A WITH ME PRISM, 80 F2.8 S (67), 120 BACK, SPEEDGRIP S, MEDIUM FORMAT SLR MANUAL FOCUS CAMERA OUTFIT . All for the outrageous price of $427. Bronica Etr/s are even cheaper ETRS WITH 75 F2.8 EII (62), 120 BACK, PRISM, SPEEDGRIP E, MEDIUM FORMAT SLR MANUAL FOCUS CAMERA OUTFIT for $266. All bargain condition...Keh's bargain cond. is other folk's excellent minus...Medium format at 35mm prices. Try and find a dslr above 6 mp for that much! Good luck and hope that helped.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

Just as a matter of interest, why? What do you need/want that your DSLR isn't giving you?

 

I just traded in a large 645 kit for a 10D, 17-40L & 70-200L for both landscape and wedding work (when I work out how the hell to control the bleedin' ETTL!)

 

I just got a 8X10 portrait back from the lab which I ressed up in photoshop from a scan of a 35mm NPH frame. The original scan was 6X4" 300ppi. Although the grain is noticeable if you hold it up to your eye, you would never have known, it really, really suprised me, so when my lab (BPD in Warrington, without doubt the best 'landscape' printers in the UK) told me that at 18X12 you couldn't tell the difference between a 645 and 6meg DSLR print, I went home and put my whole MF gear for sale.

[al_kaplan1]

Well, the DSLR True Believers want to keep justifying to themselves what a great outfit they have so let them. If you really want to see where MF shines, where the glow and tonality really knocks you off your feet, try shooting some real black and white film developed and printed on real silver wet-process paper by a good darkroom tech. Hard to find anymore! You might want to look about for an old twin lens Rolleiflex or Minolta Autocord. Don't worry about the "primitive" single coated lens. That can add to the charm. Some of the Japanese manufacturers, mostly for the home Japanese market, have started offering limited production runs of single coated lenses again!

 

The traditional way of shooting wedding candids with a TLR was to zone focus and use the sportsfinder in the hood. Late model Rolleis have a removeable hood and you can substitute an eye level Rollei pentaprism or a Mamiya Porroflex finder, that they made to fit Rollei. Fast, silent leaf shutter, no mirror delay!

[steve_levine]

Why step backwards?

[anton frid photography]

Ben - DSLR offers me large inlargemeents (prints) and the inexpensive (economical) way of doing weddings. So believe me, i am not complaining :) I just always wanted to try MF, and what a better way to do it then shooting weddings.

 

Steve -I dont think i am stepping backwards...I think manually setting up the shots, having to think about the lighting more and so on, gets me all bubbly :) Although DSLR (fuji S2) has a manual mode, its still not the same.

 

I actually looked into TLR before but for travel purposes (which i want to use it for and portriture) the lenses are not better then a regular MF slr.

 

Thank you for your help guys...I still dont know what to buy! :)

 

best

 

anton

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

Anton, if you already have a DSLR, then I can't see how it would be more expensive, when I shoot weddings, especially the group/portrait shots, I have to shoot extra for safety factor, blinking eyes etc. Every extra safety shot costs me. If I'm shooting MF then it costs me double 35mm due to higher P&P costs per frame. With digital, I can take those shots, and only have to print the best ones (at cheaper prices anyway per picture) which saves me a lot of money as the client is still paying for the same 200 proofs.

 

Al, I shoot weddings, I have to present 200 proofs within 2 weeks to a client, and my clients expect a majority of colour prints. I'm sure you are right about the difference, believe me I know what my MF system could do, I owned it and used it! but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is better for modern wedding photographers whose majority of work never gets printed above 8X10"!

 

That said I will only use my 10D DSLR for wedding work once I've worked out how to get consistent results from the ETTL flash. I can't afford to learn a new system on the job when someone's wedding is at stake! If anyone can help me in controlling the flash when you get black suits and white/light dresses mingling during the reception and dancing, then I would be most grateful!

[picturesque]

I shot weddings with a Mamiya C330f system for over 12 years. Now I use Hasselblads. It takes getting used to--parallax and other viewing quirks, but there are also advantages--no mirror slap, meaning you can handhold pretty slow speeds and you can see if the flash fired and sometimes see blinks. The equipment is cheap and pretty sturdy. The optics are excellent. Like any system, maintenance is still a must and certain mechanical aspects will cause the occasional problem. For $500, you can get a C330f body plus normal lens easily. Add a prism and a flash bracket and you're all set. The C330s body was the latest version but is more plastic-y. The only advantage it has is the brighter viewing screen. If you decide on this system, keep to the black lenses and later models as parts for some of the early stuff are hard to find.

 

I still shoot the entire wedding on medium format, with 35mm alongside to get the PJ style shots. The area where medium format will shine is formals and portraits, so if you want to work medium format into weddings, start there first. Otherwise, it does take a little more work to shoot PJ style with medium format although let's not forget that Denis Reggie helped start the PJ wedding style using his Hasselblad.

[melisa]

I really enjoy my MF camera, I use an older Mamiya 645 w/ 80mm and 150mm, bought with extras for $500. I use mine for available light ceremony shots from the back of the church and formals, on a tripod, shots more likely to be enlarged. I'll attach a couple shots one w/ the 645 and the other w/ the 35mm, both on NPH400 with single lighting. The 645 is a sharper shot, IMHO, would make nicer enlargements.<div></div>

[melisa]

Here's the other.<div></div>

[pavelp]

Anton,

 

you might better off asking this question on the Medium Format forum. FILM is not a four letter word there :-)

 

Anyway, with your budget, you could probably get really nice Rollei TLR, but that's a fixed lens camera so it has some limitations. Or you could get Bronica ETRSi (645). Bronica has leaf shutter lenses, which means you can easily use fill flash outdoors (it will sync in all speeds). Bronica SQai 6x6 is probably even better, but I think it's out of your budget (you could probably get SQ, SQA or SQB though). ETRSi and SQai can be switched to AE aperture priority mode (if you need to).

 

The problem with Mamiya SLR's is that 645s are focal plane shutter with low sync speed (1/60 I believe, if not worse). You can get leaf shutter lenses for M645 but it's probably better to start with leaf-shutter system.

 

If you are considering an RZ but cannot afford it, you may still get RB67 Pro S with basic lens within your budget (basic Mamiya RB67 Pro-S kit (ready to shoot) runs $400-$500 on the eBay). Don't buy plain vanilla RB67 as it has no interlocks and you might easily endup taking 200 pictures of the dark slide. Pro S is much better in this aspect. RB handles surprisingly well with the LH grip.

 

Kievs seem to have above the comfort level number of reported reliability problems.

 

Pentax67 is reported as having heavy mirror slap. Of course there are people who can handhold it at 1/8s anytime, but it seems to be general consensus that P67 really works well on a tripod.

 

Last but not the least, you have can the camera that is so much fun that it should be illegal, the Mamiya TLR. If you go this way, get C330s because it has better focusing wheels and brighter screen (or get c330/c330f and focusing tire and Maxwell/Beattie screen). You will probably want a prism, both Mamiya eyelevel prism and Baier 45deg prisms are excellent. Avoid porrofinders. What I like on Mamiya is that the lenses are quite small and you can easily carry them in a pocket of your jacket (or more likely tux in your case). Mamiya takes both single and double capacity memory rolls (I cannot imagine using 120 for shooting events)

 

I use Mamiya TLR as my second camera when shooting events (just to add some style and have some fun). With 45deg prism it handles pretty much like any other manual camera (once you get your hands around it) and the lenses are excellent performers. I hope to add the real flashbulb gun to my equipment soon (that would be so much retro that it would be novel).

 

I think it is a nice idea to try something different once a while.

[anton frid photography]

Thank you all for your feedback. I really took an account all of your suggestions, and thought hard and long before i purchased in good condition Mamiya m645 80mm 1.9 MF. Although i know its not the best camera for wedding work, nor events, i really coudn't pass on the $250 sticker on it on ebay. As for now, i will be looking to do a lot of portiture shots of my family and friends with this camera. Not sure i will be taking it on the road soon, but you never know. Right now i will stick woth Fuji S2 as event camera. I am not sure if i accomplished what i said to do (get a MF camera that is good for event photography, portriture, and travel) but i think this is a good starting point for my intro into MF world...

 

will post images as soon as they are ready.

 

 

Anton

[gary_woodard]

steve, we step backwards when stepping forwards takes us where we dont wish to go, or the scenery is lacking.