True to their boast about the mirror allowing a deep seated lens, these lenses jut quite far into the body of the camera itself, giving them excellent stability and quite a compact size for the format.įinally, the final big feature that Zenza Bronica like to emphasise in the manual is its ability to take either 120 or 220 format film, allowing the choice of 12 or 24 exposures. There were at least ten lenses ranging from a wide angle 40mm (somewhere around 25mm in 35mm film terms), to a whopping great big 600mm lens (around 375mm in 35mm terms), covering all the major focal lengths in between. In fact, the selection of lenses available at the time of this camera’s release is genuinely quite impressive. The manual makes a big song and dance about Nikkor lenses being available for the camera, although by the time the S2A was around they were also making their own Zenzanon lenses too. You could also purchase a Polaroid film back, not that I have ever seen one.
I have two film backs for this, one I use for colour and one for black and white, see this was worthwhile them harping on about in the manual. 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). Camera review: Zenza Bronica S2A - EMULSIVE Close Search for:
0 kommentar(er)
