The real reason many of us want to get into medium format is the ability to change out film half way and swap to something different, I imagine back in the day this was coveted as an amazing feature. Second, it has an interchangeable film back magazine. I was lucky enough to pick up my copy in almost mint condition with the original box and instructions! Stand-out featuresĪ few of the features that Zenza Bronica deemed worthy of being printed in bold lettering on the very first page of the manual:įirst, the Instant Return Automatic Mirror which is described as “an exclusive and original mechanism.” When you fire the shutter the mirror moves forward and down, rather than the usual upward of an SLR mirror and then returns automatically to the viewing position, apparently this makes it easier to use wide angle or deep seating lenses on the body and gives a brighter image in the viewing screen. The S2A was sold until around 1977, although it had been officially discontinued sometime before. Interestingly, some lenses came with their own additional helicoid to provide the extra bump needed for their focal length. This design was unique to the Bronica S2 and combined with the camera’s focal plane shutter, allowed the lenses to be incredibly compact when compared to Hasselblad, Rollei and other vendors 6×4.5, 6×6 and 6×7 offerings. The main advance from the Bronica S and S2 was the introduction of a dedicated focusing helicoid integrated to the camera body. The S2A was the successor to its earlier counterpart the S2 and most notably includes an updated gear advance mechanism which results in less jamming (something that both the S and S2 were known for). Would he come back to me now, I’d now exactly what to answer.Camera review: Zenza Bronica S2A - EMULSIVE Close Search for: While I was loading the Yashica with Roberto a guy with a marked french inflection told usįilm nowadays are only good to play with, digital is better, I have a lot of collection film cameras but they’re definitely over. I tasted them one by one, I would have not shot any other one, they filled with their richness, with the taste, with that they teached me. No continuous-shooting-I’ll-choose-the-best-later. The time you’ve taken to imagine the shot, to frame it, to create it makes you know every single detail of the picture, the only variables being the film grain and the skill of the guys at the lab.Įventually I shot 15 exposures on the entire saturday (the 3 more have being shot with the ’59 Agfa Optima I’m using for my Habitat project), without shooting anything digital. And then the expected joke “Let me see how it’s come!” which makes you smile, because you can show nothing but you perfectly know how it’s come. A click almost presumed, for its stillness. Every shot has being framed, composed, evaluated, the shutter speed and the aperture has been checked with the light meter, set, reframed, focused, rechecked everything through the magnifier and then… click. Italy is the hometown of the Slow Food movement, here we can talk of slow photography. The ergonomics, the weight - ask my shoulders! - and the general feeling is slower, thoughtful, enjoyed. If you are digital-born like me, the complete camera manual-mode can fighten a bit, and at least one of the 12 exposures will be for sure overexposed for I forgot to set the aperture… Holding a complete mechanic camera in your hands, though, projects you in an entire new dimension of photography. Once you get used to the inverted image that forces you to move the camera in reverse than what intuitively your brain would suggest, even the bare looking is a pleasure, and many times I surprised myself framing for quite a good time without shooting after that.
Despite its brightness, its brilliance, even its Retina, no screen could ever match a medium format fresnel. If we have some comfort why shouldn’t we use it? Framing through the waist-level finder was an unexpected experience.
#BRONICA S2 EXPOSURE METER FREE#
The light meter - of course not a TTL one - battery was exausted and it reminded me the good ol’ Sunny 16 rule, but I reminded I own an iPhone too, and to avoid bad shots I found the free Pocket Light Meter.
#BRONICA S2 EXPOSURE METER PRO#
Loaded the Yashica with a Fujicolor Pro 160NS and the Bronica with an Ilford HP5, saturday I used only the former cause the light and the colors of Rovigo deserved a color film. And, after all, they will be in any case ready before a lot of digital shots of mine will be )
Of course I have not - so far - any picture to show you, but this is part of the game too: that twelve shots sealed in a black box, waiting to be brought to the lab and then, finally, someday visible to the human eye, days after being taken, are the pinch of unpredictability that is part of the life itself.
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