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Hi,

I have a newbie question. I'm looking at trying out MF and wondered what you guys think of the Bronica ETR Si. I'm mainly thinking about landscape and portraits.

Thanks in advance for any input!

da_xanadu

I use a Mamiya RB67 Pro SD. This camera is alot bigger than the Bronica but is alot more versitile. The negitive size on this camera is 6x7cm which is about 5.6X larger than a 35mm frame, this size negivive enlarges to 10 x 8" with minimal cropping where as on some prints you can lose 33% of the negivie due to cropping. You can also rotate the back to switch between landscape and portait. The lenses for this camera are genrally around f3.5 but due to thier large size they are very sharp and are equlitant to about a f1.8 lens. Benificial to land scape photography, when using the 6x7 format, the focal length of the lens is halfed so you obtain a wider field of view, eg. 90mm becomes 45mm. You can also purches a varitie of backs to give you wide negivies like a 6x8cm motorised back or a 6x9cm back. Due to the mass overpowerment of digital SLR technology the price of this kinda equipment has tumbled. The quality you get from a velvia cibachrome print ona 6x7cm negitive is by far better quality in my oppionion than any digital SLR avaliable. They say to get the exact same quality as a 35mm negivie you need 20MP, so thier for you need 144MP to give the quality of a 6x7cm negitive. You can at the moment but digital back "Cheap ish" but they are only 6MP and sell for around £2000 and are quite outdated so buying one of these would be abit of a step back in quality.

To answer your question....

The Bronnys are good cameras. They'll do just about anything you want done except fast action stuff...but then, that's not exactly MF territory anyway!

Plus side on Bronnys...they are small as far as MF camera go. Therefore, they are much easier to lug around in a back pack or over rougher terrain as you would for some types of landscape work. The controls are pretty basic and fairly easy to manipulate. There are a number of accesories you could add. Speed winder, motor drive, various prisms such as waist level or eye level, etc. It shoots a 6x4.5 cm negative which is about 3 x that of a 35mm. Your images will really hold up to enlarging up to and past 16 x 20.

Down side of Bronnys...the company that owns Bronica (Tamron, I think) just went out of the MF business. As a result, you can buy them relatively inexpensively but don't plan on getting your money back if you decide to sell it. Parts will probably still be easy to come by, but this may change over the next few years. Bronnys have probably the loudest "mirror slap" that I've ever heard on a MF camera. I'm not sure about the Si version, but the ETRS and ETRC do not have mirror lock up, nor do they have a "timed" exposure setting. So, what does that mean?

Mirror Lock Up...if you want to do some really neat macro or fine detail work, you want to be able to lock the mirror up before you trip the shutter. This will reduce any vibration that the mirror may induce when it springs out of the way during the picture taking process. Bronnys, at least the two models I've owned, don't have this capability. Your ETRSi might.

Timed Exposure...If I wanted to shoot a 2 minute exposure with either of my Bronnys, I'd have to do it in 8 second increments. Those two models don't have a timed exposure option. The longest I could expose on a single shot was 8 seconds. I got around this by setting the camera for multiple exposures on a single frame and then figuring out how many seconds I needed. For example...a two minute exposure is 120 seconds. 120 divided by 8 equals 15. That means I had to expose a single frame 15 times for a two minute exposure. Each time I reset the mirror I ran the risk of moving the camera, bumping the tripod etc...then there was the mirror slap issue for each and very 8 second exposure....

The Bronnys are great little cameras, but they do have their limitations. I had two of them up until today, as a matter of fact. I traded them both for one RB67 and I did so for the reasons I outlined above.

If you're wanting to get into MF photography I think the Bronny is a great choice. I wouldn't spend much more than 300 bucks, though. That's for camera, backs, lense, prism...the whole shooting match.

Things to think about! Have fun!

Bronica ETRSI is a great way to get into medium format, the biggest bonus being that you can pick up s/h gear for next to nothing. The ETRSI, SQA, SQAI, SQB & GS1 all have mirror lock up. I just bought, what looks to be, a brand new SQB for less than a mediocre 35mm kit. As far as I know the bronica system encompasses as many options (possibly more) than Hasselblad. The down side of the SQB is it has no Bulb setting but, unless you are doing astro photography, this should not be a problem. If you are used to 35 mm functionality the ETRSI + speedgrip + AE prism should be very easy to get to grips with.
And I don't care what anyone says, Bronica lenses are really good.
Buying new is probably not such a good idea given the investment loss by the time you leave the shop.
If I had a ton of money to spend I personally would buy the Rollei 6008 Autofocus (wow, what a camera).
Back to your fundamental question, yes an ETRSI with a wide lens, in the right hands, will take superb landscapes.

Hi! ETRSi is just medium format.It both studio & locations camera. very small,SLRlike, 1/500 sync time - for outdoor portraits,fill in possibility. very cheap secondhand as they stopped production already.landscape lens:zenzanon 40 mm, fantastic portrait lens:zenzanon 180 mm.very popular camera among American wedding photographers. happy shooting
regards, Stan

ERNIE B.	Hassan *.	Alfons R.	Debjit G.	Paul H.	Antonio T.	Radovan M.	Jill B.

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