Ever since I sent away my Canon F-1 for repairs, I have been restless. It simply doesn't feel right to not have that sturdy piece of equipment in my hand. I thought I'd try another camera for the time being. Some photographer friends were discussing Mamiya's medium format cameras, so I rented out a RZ67 + 110mm lens combo.
The Camera
This is probably the heaviest camera I have ever held. Beautiful but unwieldy. I absolutely love the waist-level finder, but it takes me a million years to meter, frame, focus, wind, take out the metal piece, and finally shoot.
The Film
On my way to Maine to see the solar eclipse, I stopped at a local flea market just for fun. After digging through piles of antiques, I came across a pack of Polaroid 35mm HighDefinition ISO 400 (expired 2007). I had no idea what condition they were in, but they sold for a good price, and I couldn't pass on an opportunity to try shooting on expired film.
The Settings
For starters, I ordered some medium format adapters for 35mm canisters. After watching some videos, I found a general consensus to try not waste any film if possible, i.e. before loading 35mm film into a medium format camera, you should attach a leader to it. I saw some attach 120 roll film backing paper (which I don't have), and I instead settled on cutting some empty 35mm film and call it a day.
Alignment was very important, and I tried my best to place the film in the center of the plate. I also tightened the leader as much as I could to minimize slack so that the film wouldn't shift in place as easily.
Once everything is locked and loaded, I was faced with a truly difficult question: what ISO should I rate the expired roll? Again, the general consensus from netizens seemed to be: overexpose by one stop for each decade. It's been 17 years since the roll expired, so I rated it to ISO 160 throughout.
The Experiment
Nothing out of ordinary. I used my phone's light meter and just hoped for the best. While I have lots of complaints about the camera being heavy, it does help stabilize my stance when shooting for slower shutter speeds. The rotating back also came in super handy. If I couldn't see the viewfinder I don't think I would have been able to aim correctly at all. I did not have a viewfinder adapter so I had to estimate where in the frame the film should be to begin with.
Advancing the film requires: 1) putting the camera in multi-exposure mode when shooting (so that the shutter fires even though what's loaded isn't proper 120 film), 2) switching back to regular mode, 3) wind crank forward. Repeat. Unloading the film was tricky. RZ67 can detect when a 120 roll is finished and rewinds automatically, but not with a roll of 35mm. I had to take off the back and rewind the canister manually in the darkness of my closet, which had some light leak through the cracks despite it being the evening. Turns out later that wouldn't be a noticeable problem.
The Results
I gotta say, the panoramas turned out rather beautifully, even though they were a bit underexposed...
The details are absolutely bonkers, and I love how the width captures the entire scene. Chef's kiss.
Conclusions
I love the results, but I don't think I would ever want to own a medium format camera as big as this one. It is just not an enjoyable experience to use from day to day. I would be very happy to rent/borrow it for specific projects, but I wouldn't want a professional camera like this to go to waste and gather dust on my shelf. For now, I am still a one-camera gal, and I'd stick to my Canon F-1. As for the film, I would probably re-rate it at ISO 100 or 125, consistent with the one stop/decade rule.