[LaHo]

Mamiya C330 Professional – An Old Gem

(X-post from "Film Shooters Unite")

A user at a local site had some questions about an old camera, the Mamiya C330 Professional with the 135mm F4.5 short tele lens, that he had been given by an older friend. He asked how to check if it was functional, how to operate it, and so forth.
He soon concluded that it was too much hassle for him and tried to sell it, but there was little interest, so I decided to take it off his hands. I’m glad that I did, as the camera is quite nice and much fun to use.

The Mamiya C330 is a so-called Twin Lens Reflex camera. It uses 120 (or 220) film, and the negative format is 6x6 cm and will give 12 images on a roll of 120 film. It is a system camera in the sense that you can switch lenses and viewfinders, and the system includes two wide-angle lenses (55mm and 65mm), two standard lenses (80mm and 105mm) and three tele lenses (135mm, 180mm and 250mm). There are also different viewfinders: straight waistlevel finder, magnifying hood (or chimney) finder, pentaprism finder and a two pentamirror finders (called “porrofinders”) with or without CdS light meter. My camera came with both the standard waist-level viewfinder and the chimney finder.



I had to clean the camera up a bit, especially the viewfinder systems, and remove a couple of decades’ worth of dust and grit, give the shutter a little work-out, and check the overall functioning. There was some fogging or moisture inside both the viewing and the taking lens, but the 135mm is a rather simple objective with only four elements, so it was fairly easy to take the lenses apart and clean the glass inside. (Note: do not remove the two lenses from the lens board, as it can then be rather difficult to adjust proper focus afterwards.)

The shutter was sluggish at first, but responded well to some gentle coaching. The big question on these old machines is: does the camera wind the film properly? I tried it with some 120 backing paper without film, and it seemed to work all right, but the handle would not stop as it should at frame number 12. Well, I could live with that, so I put in some Kodak Tri-X film and sallied forth. (Note: the camera has several complicated interlocks, so it has to be tested with film in the camera and operated in the proper manner.)

I only had time for a few shots on my first trip before it became too dark to do much photography. Here is one taken rather late in the evening:
Passenger Train


The next morning was misty and grey with rain approaching, but I wanted to complete the film. The film came out amazingly well, I think. I don’t know if the shutter speeds are exact, but the film was well exposed, and the images sharp and crispy.
Dyrehaven - Springforbi gate


Old, Struggling Hawthorn


I can recommend trying out some of the old medium-format cameras. In addition to the Pentax 645 system and Pentax 6x7 system I now have two old Zeiss folders from the early 50’ies (6x6 and 6x9) plus this “new” TLR from 1969, and they are all a joy to use. It sharpens your eye, when you instead of a 32 GB memory card have to make do with a 120 film with in this case only 12 images.

The 135mm isn’t the sharpest lens of the bunch, but it is a valued portrait lens. Still, my images came out sharp enough. Proper focus is fairly easy to obtain with the large focusing screen and the nice rail focusing mechanism. The magnifying hood improves contrast and magnifies the image on the screen, but also adds bulk to the camera. I’m not sure which viewfinder system, WLF or chimney, I like best. The Seiko leaf shutter is nearly silent, and no moving mirror means almost zero camera shake at normal speeds.

All in all I find the approx. 100 GBP well spent.

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Last edited by LaHo; 09-25-2014 at 02:30 AM. Reason: adding image

[StephenHampshire]

Still got my copy of this fine camera, and also the 135mm! Used it for portraits back in the day! Leaf shutter gives synch options with flash...