Mamiya C33 - Beginner's Question

[kathie_braker]

Well, I did it - I purchased a Mamiya C33 w/ a 105/f3.5 lense. I

purchased it on ebay, and some of you probably will think I got

screwed... I paid $175 for a piece of equipment that the seller said

was in "excellent working condition" - well, needless to say it was

not. Shot seals, missing sync socket, shutter speeds totally out of

wack, wobbly lock/unlock knob, etc. Sooooo, I took it to a good

repair shop locally and the tech said to try to get half my money

back and put it through a good overhaul. The seller was great, gave

me $90 back, and for $400 into it I HOPEFULLY have a great camera...

The point of this info request is, however, for a recommendation on a

good book that explains things like using flash, parallax correction,

exposure correction, etc. I've only ever used a Nikkormat FT3 that I

probably don't know as much about as I should. Things like parallax

and exposure correction (I think I shall miss my light meter)are a

little daunting right now. Any comments/suggestions?

[skygzr]

Hi Kathie -

 

You can't go wrong by starting here -

 

http://www.btinternet.com/~g.a.patterson/c330/c330.html

 

The C33 is a great deal like the C330.

 

The Mamiyas are great cameras....enjoy yours. Too bad about the eBay thing, but now that you have it, take pictures and don't worry about it.

[art_haykin]

Exposure correction, or rather, correct exposure is best achieved with a reliable light meter and knowledge of its use.This can only come with time and experience along with a bit of study. Parallax is the different view of the subject between the top, or viewing lens, and the bottom, or taking lens. It shouldn't be much of a problem at, say, 6 feet or more, but it CAN be corrected for for shorter distances. Details on request.

[david_nebenzahl]

I know this is a "coulda-shoulda-woulda" statement, but maybe you should have held out for a C330; doesn't this camera have built-in parallax correction? Very handy in a TLR.

[david_f._stein]

Kathie, look for the MAMIYA PROFESSIONAL SYSTEMS HANDBOOK by ROBB SMITH,

1974. It appears on eBay from time to time, but it's amazing how many books I can

find on abebooks.com for LESS. It was published in the heyday of the Mamiya C Twin

Lens Reflex, Mamiya Press, and RB67 cameras-covers them all exhaustively, as well as

having general sections, as all good books those days did, on Lighting, Exposure,

Composition, Close-up, etc. applied to those cameras. A well-repaired camera now is

better than "trying again." By the way, there was a Mr. Mamiya, one of the all-time

giants in photo design and production. GOOD LUC

[graham_patterson1]

The C33 is a good camera. It has all the crucial features of the C330 series, except perhaps the focus lock.

 

Flash: hit the local library for a book about using manual flash exposure. The camera is immaterial to the technique. The shutter controls ambient light, and the aperture, flash power and subject distance are the elements in calculating the flash exposure.

 

Parallax correction and compensation, and exposure compensation: See

http://www.btinternet.com/~g.a.patterson/mfaq/m_faq-5.html for a start.

[john_hicks___]

You can probably still get an instruction book for the C330 from Mamiya, or try John S. Craig, who sells new and photocopied books for many cameras. The C33 is very similar to the later C330.

 

Anyway...it's been a few years since I've even touched one of these cameras...but on one side there's a knob that has a notch or pointer that can be rotated to markings of "80..105..135..180" etc. Set that knob so it's indicating the lens you have, in this case, the 105. Once that's set, when you focus closely you'll see a dark bar come down into the top of the viewfinder screen; if I recall correctly, the bar comes down into the upper left corner of the screen, and is behind the screen so it's not really sharp and clear. This bar indicates the _top_ of what's going to be in the photo. Notice that if focused at a distance the bar doesn't appear; this is because parallax would be insignificant. But closer than around three feet you'd be getting into the range in which you'd crop off the top of subjects' heads so the parallax-indicator bar appears.

 

Compose your shot, then be sure what you want in the top area of the photo is _below_ parallax indicator. If you're using the camera on a tripod and must have precision, there's a gizmo called a Paramender that'll precisely compensate for the distance between the lenses.

 

The parallax-indicator also points at numbers engraved on the focus screen; these numbers give the exposure-increase factor for that focused distance.

 

You were actually giving an exposure increase at close range with your Nikkormat if you metered each shot; you didn't have to think about it because you were using the through-the-lens meter. But if you'd metered and set the exposure for, say, 50 feet, then focused and shot at one foot without giving an exposure increase the shot would've been underexposed.

 

At any rate, these things will come into play only closer than about three feet, so unless you're working that close a lot don't worry about them.