It's Zenza Bronica Time!

Because I am an insufferable middle-age, middle class guy with plenty of ADHD traits, I figured it was about time to try out a different film format because I certainly have not come anywhere near close to perfecting 35mm. 

I went over to Jeremiah's Photo Corner in Santa Rosa a few weeks ago, hoping he might have an Olympus Pen-F half frame camera on the shelf for me to purchase, but I ended up walking out with a camera from the other end of the spectrum - a Zenza Bronica ETRS medium format camera. 

ETRS cameras were apparently quite popular with photojournalists and portrait photographers in their heyday of the 1970s-80s. They're quite robust, affordable, have an abundance of lenses available and take great shots. I have to wonder if any of my school portraits were snapped with one of these. Medium format cameras use 120 film and will create frames in various sizes. The ETRS exposes a frame 6cm wide x 4.5cm tall. Others may make 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, etc. While the 6 x 4.5 is the smallest of the medium formats, it's still considerably larger than the 35mm standard - 212% larger by my calculations, which yields larger negatives and better resolution. While I would really like to shoot square 6x6 negatives, an upside with the ETRS is that one can minimize the film and developing costs. Plus I am not chasing resolution - if that were the case I'd be using nothing but my modern Sony camera. Finally one fun thing that this camera allows for that can't be done with my 35mm cameras is swapping film backs. The kit I bought includes two, so I can switch between film stocks with relative ease - it takes maybe ten seconds. 

Anyway, enough about the camera here are the results from the first roll, shot using Kodak Gold 200. I did make some light tweaks to most of the images - bumped up some contrast, adjusted exposure, etc. Nothing heavy-handed though. Oh, and there are only 14 images as I accidentally fired the shutter when placing the camera in my vehicle. A mistake that probably cost me two bucks. 

Back lot of the local VW repair shop: 

The blur across the second image was the chainlink fence - I was hoping it'd be a bit more pronounced TBH. 

Outside the nearby coffee shop. Anybody want a Fiero project (I do not):

And some tractors from the area. 

Killed the roll off at July's Pre-Stage Gathering. 

Last shot had a faint vertical line right about thru the middle of it. Not sure if this was a scanning glitch or in the negative itself. 

There were a few situations where I wish I had better framed the shots, but I'll try to do better on down the line. One thing that using this fully manual camera is that it really slows me down - no built in meters to lean on. Still needs a battery to fire the shutter though. 

Overall I am quite happy with how this first roll turned out and am eager to run more film thru it on vacation in a few weeks.