david_holland1

If you're interested in the reason everyone is saying forget the flash, it's that the light from a flash falls off very rapidly as distance from the camera increases. Thus exposure is dependent on distance from the camera. It also depends on film speed and aperture, but not on shutter speed, since the duration of the flash is almost always faster than the shutter. If the subject is exposed correctly (not that easy in the first place if you don't know the film speed or the distance precisely), then anything closer than the subject will be overexposed and anything farther will be underexposed.

Something to consider in your project is color temperature. Torchlight will be about as warm as light can get, so you may need to do some color balancing to get your film to look like what you remember.

If you do, then the suggestion to go to a print film makes even more sense. Not only are faster films available, but you'll get more exposure lattitude. The half stop differences that show up easily in slide film are a lot more difficult to detect at the film speeds you're using. If you don't have time to test exposure, print film will be a lot safer.

The other thing to consider is that it sounds like you're heading into a very high contrast situation. If you don't want bright spots in a dark sea, you might think about how to decrease contrast.

The way that works the best, if your torcholders light up early, is to shoot while there is still ambient light and use a slight bluish filter and a little underexposure to make it look like night. From now on when you go to the movies and see a night scene, look for that technique and you'll see pretty often. Otherwise, it takes a lot of strategically placed lights to deal with the fall-off problem.

And by the way, another thing to consider is that a 80mm lens for medium format may have the coverage of a 50mm on a 35, but it is still an 80mm as far as hand holding shutter speeds and depth of field are concerned. As you know the only way to get more shutter speed and more depth of field is higher film speed. When I hand hold my 645, I shoot 400 film even in daylight, and if I were you I'd shoot 800 print film and push it a stop.

I have been using an Olympus E-10 instead of Polaroid.

Although the exposure correlates pretty well (treating the E-10 as though it is ISO 120), I really don't use it for exposure, just to look for shadows and ratio.

The biggest problem is that the minimum aperture on the E-10 is f/11, and sometimes I can't get my lights that low (nor do I want to, because I'm usually shooting the RZ with a 180, and I want the depth of field).

It works pretty well most of the time, though, for compostion and proofing the lighting setup, even with the little readout on the camera.

It's much faster than Polaroid if you don't transfer to a computer, and free as opposed to expensive. If you transfer to a computer, an E-10 isn't what you want--the fastest way to make the transfer is to transfer the memory card from the camera to the computer.

I hand hold the E-10, of course, and just shoot from the RZ position, so it is quick and easy. It's a lot easier to just move the synch cord than to change backs. In addition, I not only have a record of the lighting adjustments, I often get a keeper with the digital that may be useful without the need to be scanned.

I did, however, get one totally inexplicable discrepancy just recently: the E-10 kept showing the top of the background (for a head shot) as too light (notwithstanding that the meter showed even), and when I toned it down to the right balance, the same area on the negatives was too dark (meaining I should have believed the meter). I'm still not sure what happened.

Incidentally, the E-10 has a synch connection--you don't use the hot shoe.

David Holland

Some random thoughts:

The prices don't look that bad to me. You might want to look at the used and new prices at B&H Photovideo and compare. New RZ lenses are about $1500 each, so buying a 65, 110, and 180 gets you to $5,500.

Buying the kit you want on ebay may take a long time to piece together at the prices that some of the others are suggesting.

You may not get as reliable a seller (someone you don't know) as someone you do.

The education that comes with the kit may be worth a lot of money, and you'll get to test everything in the process. Even if you know as much as he does about studio work in general, it will still be different.

Although the coverage of a 6x7 lens, when compared to a 35 is roughly half, 180mm is still 180 when it comes to depth of field, hand holding shutter speed, and finder brightness. That's the price you pay for the bigger negatives. Thus, focus becomes more difficult just as it becomes more critical.

I don't know how old you are, but at 61 my old eyes can't focus through the RZ prism finder indoors. Medium format lenses, particularly 6x7, are slow--like 4.5--and there is light loss with the prism as well.

You didn't say where you intend to use the camera. It is pretty much a tripod proposition, and I rarely use mine outside of my studio or with available light. Therefore I wouldn't use a prism finder anyway--I compose better with the waist level finder, and in the studio and the rare outdoor use, I use a handheld meter for incident readings anyway. But I have a point and shoot for outdoors (a Pentax 645N) and don't need the RZ to do double duty.

This isn't to say that it doesn't work great outdoors, and the lens shutters permit flash synch at higher shutter speeds (which is what the Pentax won't do). If I need to balance ambient light with fill flash, I have to put the Pentax on a tripod to use a 150 or 200 at the slow shutter speed, and if I do I might as well use the RZ.

If you buy the kit, you could also sell off the bits you don't need and recoup some of the price. Everyone has different needs, but for me I would certainly get rid of the 150, a prism finder, and a back or two.

My kit, by the way, is a ProII with 50, 110, and 180, a winder, 2 120 backs, and a Polaroid back. Figure the ProII with 110 and a 120 back used from B&H at $2,000, the other lenses at $1,000 (but you probably won't find the 50), add in the winder and the other backs and you get into the $5,500 range.

A further by the way: I don't use the polaroid anymore--I do the proofs with a digital, but it's a bit tricky since the minimum aperture on the digital is f/11, and I usually shoot at f/22 and up with the RZ and studio lights. If you think about it, with the digital at 22mm, equivalent to 180mm on the RZ, the actual aperture is only 2mm in diameter at f/11, while the RZ at f/22 is 8mm. I suspect that the reason that the digital is limited to f/11 is that difraction is a real problem at the smaller apertures. One advantage of the longer equivalent coverage medium format lenses is that, compared to 35mm, you don't need to worry as much about the small aperture/difraction problem.

Please let us all know what you decide to do!

David Holland

When I think of portraits, I think of head shots, and 150mm for 645, 180 for 6x7. I don't think that there is a portrait lens for the Bronica RF. Isn't the longest one 100mm?

I agree with Russ. Focusing a SLR is hard enough with minimal depth of field even before you get up close--why handicap yourself with a rangefinder? When I moved out of the house and into a dedicated camera room, I started out with a Pentax 645N in my studio. I changed to a Mamiya RZ, for higher speed flash synch (probably because I just wanted it), and I found I just plain do better with the waist level finder. I still have and love the Pentax, however, and use it on the outside.

I really do think that 645 is big enough for portrait work. And you get half again as many shots on a roll. If you're using studio lights, you don't need a meter and in my opinion you're better off without a prism. It should be fairly easy to find a good box with an 80mm and a 150mm for not too much money.