(Ma)Mamiya

Here I go again

“Oh, he’s so big!”, my girlfriend cried out in horror. And indeed, my ‘new’ second-hand camera is so big that I am considering renting it out via AirBnB in Amsterdam. But what’s more, it is so heavy that just the thought of taking it with me for a day makes me feel like my biceps are growing in size.

The Mamiya RB67 is a medium format analog camera and it works completely mechanically; no battery required. “RB” stands for Rotating Back. Which means that you only have to rotate the film cassette on the back to change the orientation of the camera from landscape to portrait. This was probably a clever idea by the designers because it is virtually impossible to rotate the entire camera a quarter turn without the risk of serious injury. “67” stands for the film format (6×7, metric in cm). That is so big that I have to suppress the urge to make a comparison with x number of soccer fields. (by the way, it is not even one 12 hundred thousandth soccer field… but don’t quote me on that)

There is no light meter, so you have to meter the old-fashioned way, like in the times of Ansel Adams: via an app on your smartphone. Furthermore, this “thing” has no Bluetooth, no WiFi, no 2, 3, or 4G, it has no IP address and it is completely useless to hackers wanting to stage a DDoS attack on a government website.

Taking pictures with it goes a little something like this. Order a couple of rolls of film online (wait, that sounds simple enough right, but it requires profound studying and reading through endless discussions on internet forums). Find an enthusiast on YouTube who has taken the trouble of making a video explaining how to fold the ridiculously large film into the massive device. After that you’re ready to throw out your back carrying the humongous piece of equipment to a nice location and hoist the colossus onto a sturdy (!) tripod, making sure you don’t forget to wear the mandatory construction helmet and safety shoes just in case…

Once you have it in place, search unsuccessfully for the on/off button for about 10 minutes. Remove the cap from the lens, fold down the mirror, hang over the device and… enjoy what you’re seeing through the viewfinder. Because this is the moment when you are finally truly captured again by the magic of photography; mirrored on the looking glass. Then measure and calculate. Medium format so (er) F11; one stop overexposed because it’s fuji film which comes to 1/300; focus again, pull a large number of levers, hold your breath and click. Nine more times and the film will be ready to get developed.

To my great joy there was still a 1-hour service in Rotterdam for developing analogue film.  And before too long I was captured by the magic of photography once again when the lady behind the counter placed my developed film on the light box in front of me. Something had actually happened in the camera after I had pressed the shutter-release button. Proof was right in front of me!

Going from a negative to a picture on the wall involves the Herculean tasks of scanning, dust removal (and there will be a lot of dust!), colour corrections and finally removing Newton rings (just look those up, they’re the result of having used a cheap-ass scanner) But finally there is the satisfaction of a lovely photo in a passe-partout on the wall. Suddenly I hear ABBA singing in the background: ma Mamiya, here I go again, my my how can I resist you. And I think to myself: Those were the good ol’ days… now where is my Nikon D800 camera?