There was a time when the three main professional cameras were the rangefinder, the single lens reflex and the twin lens reflex. All of them were good designs, but all were expensive and complex. The digital revolution didn’t make these older cameras any less valid, but it did make them a lot cheaper. What would have cost $1,000 or $2,000 a few years ago can be obtained for a couple hundred dollars now. Follow the steps below to use a Mamiya C330 twin lens camera.
Instructions
1. Load the film. There is a pressure plate inside the drop-down back of the camera that can be turned with a knob on the outside to accept 120 or 220 film. Make sure it is set to the correct film type before loading. Close the back compartment, and lock it.
2. Wind the film until it locks on the first frame to expose. It’s ready to shoot.
3. Flip up the waist-level viewfinder. This is on top of the camera and gives access to the viewing lens. There is a magnifier for better focusing, or just look through the whole screen.
4. Focus the camera with the knobs on the bottom front. The screen either will have a standard ground glass or a split-screen. For the ground glass, just focus back and forth until the image is sharp. For the other, focus until the two halves of the split screen align. The image will be reversed left to right. If you move left, the image will go right.
5. Set the shutter speed and aperture. The faster the shutter speed, the more motion can be stopped, but less light will go to the film. The smaller the aperture, the sharper the focus, but again, less light will go in.
6. Prepare to shoot outdoors on a sunny day. Set the shutter speed to the highest, the aperture to the lowest, and position the sun behind the photographer. To shoot outdoors on a hazy day, set the shutter speed and the aperture in the middle. While shoot indoors, either use a flash—electronic strobes will sync with the TLR—or high-speed film such as 400 or 800 ISO.
7. Try different exposures under different circumstances, and note what you did.
8. Beware of parallax. Parallax is the difference between the lens you look through and the lens that takes the picture. At a distance, parallax is negligible. For portraits and other up-close subjects, it matters. There’s a parallax scale on the left side of the camera. If a tripod is used, simply set the camera to take the photo, then tilt down according to the scale to frame it correctly.
9. Finish the film roll. Wind it up, and take it out. Seal it with the attached tape, and process. Color and black-and-white film can be processed at photo shops or through the mail. Or, you can develop it at home.
10. Know that the negatives or slides are big—2.25-by-2.25 inches—so they can be enlarged a lot more than 35mm or standard digital exposures. Scan the negatives into a computer to manipulate them in a photo program or get an enlarger, trays and chemicals. Expose and develop the prints. There are some photo stores that will both develop the film and scan it. They will provide different resolutions on a CD or DVD from which they or you can print.
Tags: shutter speed, ground glass, image will, lens reflex, less light