[lavascript]

It's funny that I come to the off-topic forum for the first time to make a Mamiya post, and the first post on the list is a Mamiya post!

Let me preface by saying that I have—for all intents and purposes—never touched a roll of film of any sort.

Anyway, I inherited a C330 with a few lenses several years ago and have never done anything with it. I'm kinda strapped for cash at the moment and want to sell it, but I don't even know if it works. How can I tell? Do I have to get some 120 film? Where do you even get that?

Any help will be appreciated!

Thanks.

[lavascript]

Well that will help me price it, but it won't help me figure out if it works, will it?!

[pingflood]

A C330 with several lenses should fetch some decent money, so I would try to find a local camera guy to just check it out -- shouldn't cost much and you'll know whether it's functioning well or not.

[Steve Beswick]

Every C series lens I've seen has a cocking lever, the shutter speed, the aperture, and the shutter release lever exposed for all the world to see. They are pretty straightforward cameras. If you know someone with a darkroom throw a small piece of photo paper into the body, close it up, extend the bellows, and leave it somewhere with good light for a couple hours. Take it back to the darkroom and develop the paper to check for light leaks. The rest should be pretty obvious.

[SquintyEyes]

Hi, I own a C330f so maybe I can help you out a little regarding the setup you have. First of all, check for lightleak as suggested by Steve, both for the back and for the bellow. For the body you can also check the winding mechanism. It's not that straight forward to check frame-spacing unless you actually run a roll through it and develop that. When you turn the winding crank you should see the lever about 2 o'clock of the taking lens travel down to roughly 4-5 o'clock, that's for winding up the shutter. If that moves smoothly it should be fine.

For every lens, check the optics and the shutter. Since each every lens have its own leaf shutter you'll need to check each one against all speeds. Short of having specialized equipment you can only say roughly it's working fine or not. Usually the slow speeds, usually slower than 1/8, starts to act funny first if they have been sitting idle for a long time (more than a year). Are your lenses the chrome or black version? Black version lenses are worth more as they are newer and the shutter mechanism can still be repaired. Which lenses do you have?

There's a lot of info. online, have a look around. Or you can contact me if you have more questions. It really is a great system, you should try it out! Maybe you'll fall in love and won't want to sell it haha.

[tuco]

Those are nice cameras. If you know anybody that develops their own film, loan it to them for a test spin. 120 roll film is not hard to find. You can get it online or from any decent camera store.