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I was at school today and stumbled onto a showing from a Hasselblad rep. I got to play with a medium format film, panoramic and , digital leaf & polaroid backs Hasselblads. But I was thinking - showing Hasselblads to community college students is sorta like a car dealer letting a homeless person test drive a Ferrari. here's the polaroid that I took: http://members.triton.net/eprom/hasselblad.jpg
10 responses total.
I've been searchign around the web and have found some Hasselblad knock-offs. Kiev makes the Kiev 88 which looks almost identical to the Hasselblad 503CW's. Arax does a modification of the Kiev 88 and calls it a ARAX-88. for the academic pricing under the HERO (Hasselblad Education Rewards Offer) the prices are as followed for some of the major components: V-system 501CM kit (+film mag & 80mm lens) $2414 501CW (body only) $1462 D-flash 40 TTL/OTF $368 PME-45 (45 deg prism with metering) $1182 PM-45 (without metering) $810 Polaplus film mag (polaroid back?) $315 (501CM) $2414 + (PME-45) $1182 =$3576 vs Kiev: KIEV 88CB kit (80mm lens & film back) $625 KIEV 88 kit (without mirror lock-up) $475 KIEV 88swc kit (Kiev88 + 30mm f3.5) $775 45-deg prism finder $125 45-deg finder w/TTL metering $145 45-deg finder w/TTL spot metering $225 Polaroid back $275 (KIEV 88CB) $625 + (45 TTL spot) $225 =$850 The ARAX is even cheaper: (ARAX-CM-MLU) $629 + (upgrade TTL spot) $70 =$699 http://www.hasselblad.com/ http://www.kievusa.com/ http://araxfoto.com/
I almost bought a Mamiya 645 1000s off eBay this morning. I had my finger on the re-bid button, but at the last minute I decided against it. At $350 it was a bargain. I'm suffering from non-buyers remorse. :(
I decided against getting a cheap Kiev after reading about all the
problems associated with it. The Hasselblad was never really an option
price wise. The Bronica's and Rollei failed to impress me much.
If I was going to do medium format I didn't want a TLR or a rangefinder.
6x7 is waaay too big and heavy. 6x6 is a waste of film for me because of
cropping. Eventually I decided to go with a Mamiya 645. A changable back
was a must. These criterias eliminated everything except the Mamiya Super,
Pro, and Pro TL.
I don't plan on doing TTL flash photography, so the Pro TL would have
been an extra expense. The cost difference between the super and pro was
not much so I decided to go with the newer model - The Mamiya 645 Pro.
I didn't like any of the "kits", So I decided to buy the each of the pieces
individually. Suprisingly it hasn't been much more than it would have been
buying the a complete pre-assembled used system. I bought all the pieces
off of eBay. Luckily everything i've bought so far has been in excellent or
near-mint condition.
avg cost new eBay
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Mamiya 645 Pro (body only) $1359.95 $375
Mamiya 150mm f3.8 leaf-shutter lens $1945 $219.50
film back and 120 insert $532 $165.50
Total $3836.95 $760
So i'm almost done. Alls left is a waist-level finder (approx $100-$150)
and a neck strap. I can live without the motorized grip and metered prism
(I'll use a light meter). I plan to eventually buy a polariod back and an
extra film back but that will be much later. I'm really glad everyone is
jumping ship to digital, because I doubt i'd have been able to buy this
stuff at this price even a year ago.
oh...the reason I decided against buying the Mamiya 1000s back a few weeks ago, was because it didn't have a changeable back and I wasn't crazy about the 80mm lens it came with (80mm is equiv to 50mm in 35mm).
Update. I bought a second changable back (one for B&W and one for Slide film), a f2.8 80mm lense and a flash bracket to be used with the leaf shutter lense. http://members.thegeekgroup.org/~eprom/LJ/flashbracket.jpg I'm currently using my digital camera as a light meter, but eventually i'll like to get a metered prism to cut down on the amount of stuff I haul around with me. I ran two rolls of color film through the camera so far. The first roll came out so-so. I was using my Minolta SLR for metering. With the 2nd roll, I used my digital, which gives more accurate metering, especially with tricky exposures. I've been using my digital to "scan" my slide film, and stitching them together in Photoshop. Luckily, I found out the community college I go to, has a Nikon coolscan 8000, so hopefully I can get a real scan of my film. http://members.triton.net/eprom/tigers.jpg (112 kb)
I've got an old Luna Pro reflected/incident light meter. I've been reluctant to part with it because it's such a cool looking piece of old equipment, but realistically I'm never going to use it. If you're interested, make me an offer via email. It does require two mercury batteries that are no longer available in the U.S., but two of these adapters should do the job: http://www.criscam.com/mr9.htm
Thanks for the offer, but I have a Minolta (flash, incident, reflected) meter. I just don't like it. and it's still another piece of equipment i'd have to carry. The reason i'd eventually like to get a prism is that it can "talk" to the body and i'd be able to use apperture priority.
Okay. I'll probably eBay it, then.
I spent a few hours scanning my 35mm and MF film. Scanning at 3000ppi takes forever. I think I'm gonna have to scan at 1200-1500ppi from now on to save time. The difference is probably negligible after resizing it. http://members.thegeekgroup.org/~eprom/film/ypsi.jpg (151 kb) http://members.thegeekgroup.org/~eprom/film/tigers.jpg (109 kb) I saved these scans at 800x600 72 dpi and around 50-60 quality in Photoshop. For some reason, they are quite big for such small size.
I should buy a Seagull :-)
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