mattes
Hello everyone.
I’m sure there are a few of you here who have experience with a twin-lens Mamiya C. Why not share your thoughts on how it handles, what quirks the camera has, and what to look out for when buying one?
I like to get very close to my subjects, and the Mamiya C is often mentioned in this context because of its bellows. Is it really good for close-up work? What about parallax – I hear the C330 has a viewfinder that compensates for this – how does that work?
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Many thanks
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Mattes
Wolf_XL
... I have – alongside various other medium-format cameras – a C330f as well.
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Advantage of the system: There’s hardly any other MF system where you can fit wide-angle, standard and telephoto lenses into such a compact space...
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But now, unfortunately, comes the major drawback:
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Due to the twin-lens principle, the camera isn’t really suitable for either extreme macro shots or long focal lengths. There is a parallax compensation in the form of a framing indicator for the upper part of the image, but it’s not really useful, because depending on how close I get or which focal length I use, there remains a more or less large area that I can’t see. Composing the shot thus turns into a guessing game... There is, admittedly, the Mamiya Paramender for this problem – but then I lose the actual advantages of the system, because I’m then reliant on a tripod.
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So, to sum up briefly: with the C, you can still manage to fill the frame reasonably well with a flower by the wayside. The same applies to telephoto focal lengths. The 135mm is still quite OK, with the 180mm it becomes borderline, and the 250mm is, in principle, only really usable with the sports viewfinder...
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If you’re looking for an affordable system with a built-in bellows, the Mamiya RB67 would certainly be the better choice. But that’s just ‘heavy metal’...
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Here’s a photo for comparison...
Urnes
But apart from that, the C is great fun to use. Portraits, for example, turn out really well because you can get just that bit closer. You generally get a lot of camera for your money and it’s built to a high standard. I’ve mainly used it when travelling.
Best regards, Sven.
