Lately I have had an urge to buy a medium format camera. I don’t know why I want such a beast. Maybe because I used to have a Mamiya C330. I bought that camera just out of high school and carried it with me all throughout the four years I was in the navy.
The C330 was a great camera, it was a twin lens reflex with built in bellows and had interchangeable lenses. It also had a built in parallax correction indicator so that when you focused close up, you had some idea as to where the top of your photo would be.
When I was stationed at NAS Memphis, I had access to a great darkroom. NAS Memphis was were all the airborne navy and marine rating schools were located. This included the Aerographers Mate school (airborne Photographers school). As a result, the hobby shop on that base had a large darkroom with several enlarges and developing rooms. I would take my C330 to the enlisted men’s club on Friday night and take photos of sailors and marines that had just gotten out of boot camp. I could sell a black and white 8×10 for about $3.00. that kept me in film paper chemicals and beer the whole time I was at Memphis. Once I got to Meridian however, I didn’t have the luxury of a dark room and so I had to pay for my developing. consequently I took far fewer photos in Meridian then I did in Memphis. After I got out of the Navy, I still didn’t have a darkroom and since developing cost were more then I could afford and since I needed to eat more then I needed to take pictures, I sold the C330.
I’ve been watching the camera ad’s in a couple of locations. Of course there are always a lot of great cameras on eBay. Occasionally I will find one on Craig’s List and every so often I will see one listed on the KSL.com classifieds web site. My problem is that I have Hasselblad taste on Holga budget.
Using a 2 1/4 format camera creates other problems too. For instance, Costco does not process the 120, 220 or 620 film. The local drugstore doesn’t sell that size film and once the film is processed, I would need a scanner to get the film digitized.
The one reason I got back into photography was the advent of digital cameras. So maybe I’ll just chase the dream and always think I should have had a 2 1/4 camera al the while I’ll continue to shoot with my DSLR.
