An excellent condition Bronica SQ-A medium format 6x6 camera that has been serviced recently by Harpers Photographic in Woking, very reliable and clean, light metres work, prism viewfinder, all shutter speed work.

80mm F/2.8 lens, got a bit of fungus, really worn out from my old SQ-A body (also worn out), still got me some great shot despite fungus, and reliable too, throwing that in anyway,

150mm F/3.5 lens, excellent condition portrait lens, focus very smoothly, aperture smooth, etc. glass very clean, as if it brand new.

I'm asking £300* for the whole thing, a great first camera for first-timer/student/pro, I'll be able to give you help if you're new to it.

*price negotiable, lowest I can go is £270.

now that's what I call a camera. How old is it ?

I have an Olympus Pen from the 60's, which makes all the right noises and takes half pictures so that a 36 film gives me 72 pictures. Proper cameras

half a decades old, Bronica went out of business in 2004 sadly, as they're a brilliant camera if you can't afford a hasselblad, honestly no difference between a Bronica and hasselblad.

this one I think is brought 2nd hand in 2005, was new in 1986, it has been serviced in 2005 and then 2007, my old one is the later model but damaged recently due to heavy used, upon inspecting you'd think it's made in 2005 easily.


yep, I've heard of those, I actually have the superior model the Olympus Trip 35, half frame is useful if you want more photo in a rolls, but the drawback is that the depth of field is almost twice as big (as in the background is less blurry), hence why it's not very popular (half frame that is).

"honestly no difference between a Bronica and hasselblad."

having accidentally drop kicked a hasselblad 120 roll film back with no ill effect i have to disagree. you would be left with shattered bits of plastic if you did that with a mamiya or bronica.

they are chalk and cheese, if you handed them both to a non photographer and asked which one was the better quality the answer would be the blad.
as good as the lenses are on a bronica they are not comparable with zeiss.
but then you wouldn't get one for £300

im looking to buy a m.f camera but sadly im not in the position right now for it, financially that is. :(

I'm talking about the photos, not the camera body itself, sorry for the confusion, if you want to be very technical you'd notice a difference, but to the mainstream, they wouldn't really tell a difference between two square photo taken with 80mm lens from a hasselblad and an 80mm from the bronica.

You can get a cheap TLR camera for like £15 to £50 easily on ebay.

Even exchanging it for a fixed gear bike (road convertion) is more than enough.

may I have a bump?

Bump because it's a good price, and a lovely camera. I used one a lot at college, great fun.

Be realistic. Since dirty five mill and the like most medium format is cheap, cheap. You could get a Blad outfit for that price.
Today most people do not budget to lab process and print unless its commissioned.
Probably £100 tops.

"dirty five mill"
i thought it was only me that called it that :-)

You told me that, ahem good pics in Intersection.

When it comes to film cameras, they're worth whatever anyone's willing to pay for them. One week I'm seeing Hassy 501s for £450, the next they're going on eBay for over a grand. Wish I'd bought one for £450...

Au fin du jour, unless you're going to be doing wall sized prints, you're generally not going to notice the difference. The Bron's a good intro to the world of medium format that's generally pretty inaccessible.

As much as I love Hasselblads, I could never justify buying one, because I only use film these days for personal work, and I can't justify shelling out that much on something that wouldn't return the outlay. In this respect the Bronica is a good option.

If I wasn't on the lookout for cheap Elinchrom gear at the moment, you might have been getting a PM from me...

"You might have been getting a PM from me.."
Unlikely, its a Bronica.

"As much as I love Hasselblads, I could never justify buying one, because I only use film these days for personal work."

but the v-series hasselblads are arctually a good system to use with digital backs. the h series cameras are rebadged fujis with wobbly lenses, i certainly wouldn't buy one which is why i'm keeping my 503 to use with a phase one back. i have shot on a p45 with 40/80/100/120macro zeiss lenses of various ages (the 120 is over 20 years old) all very sharp with minimal chromatic abhorration.
hassleblad have just announced a 50mpixel back, a pointless increase in size over 39mp, their r&d time would be better spent improving their current camera body and lenses or increasing the noise performance of their current chips which is piss-poor above 200asa.

We may have to continue this elsewhere, lest we hijack the thread, but it's interesting you say that. For the kind of work I do, I actually appreciate the flexibility I can get with the waist level finder, but have fallen into using a DSLR simply because of price and convenience. When the trade-off is the quality of your work though, you've got to wonder why the hell you made the switch though.

In the end, the main drawback is price - my Nikon D100 cost around £450, and with various lenses and flashes I'm still not looking at much more than a grand. With the Hasselblad and the equivalent lenses, I'd be looking at a lot more - and let's not get started on digital backs... I see myself moving more into the studio in future though, and from experience I've found the Hassy much better suited to that kind of environment.

Damn you though - without even realising it I've just trawled through eBay to see what I'd be looking to pay for a half decent setup...

Fair comment.
I miss using wlf and 67.

+2

In my experience Zeiss lenses of all ages are less sharp than one might hope, horribly prone to flare and inconsistent in colour.

The mechanical Hasselblad cameras are also painfully unreliable.

The HassleFuji solves many of these problems, but it's incompatibility with any back other than that with which it was shipped tends to classify it as a paperweight.

Compared to what?

does anyone think that £40 for an eos 5 35mm camera (the one with eye following focus) is a good price?

I gave mine to a friend a couple of years back.
Has it a lens ?
Anyway you should be crafting mallets.

got that sorted already, though they may not be legal:

"The mechanical Hasselblad cameras are also painfully unreliable."

i have to disagree with that statement. the fc2000 cameras and lenses they released in the early 80's were very unreliable and quietly dropped a few years later.
but the 500 series cameras are probably the most reliable medium format system out there. that's an opinion based on using them for the last 10 years as a photographer not an 'enthusiast'

in that time i have had one roll film back serviced as it was feeling a bit tight and slightly out of registration, i haven't had anything else serviced in that time, this stuff just works.

if it has a 50mm 1.8 of the same vintage with a metal bayonet mount then it's worth it.
if it has some kind of f3.5-5.6 slow zoom with it then it's worth peanuts

My 500CM's are still going since 1988.
No problem.

Excellent, it looks like a machete.

I've got two in my room right now. lethal.

problem with digital back - they tend to be cropped (like DSLR with it's APS-C sized sensor), even thought it's slighty larger than full-frame digital SLR, it's still cropped.

film still cheaper, shoot 12 rolls of decent shot, hop down to Marchmont Street snappy snap, 1 days process + CD only, about £8, and bob your uncle.

that's a problem if you shoot really wide, it's not an issue for me as i have a 40mm and i don't use it that often and can always hire a 38swc (never needed to though).

those cropped dslr's are a like squinting into microscope, i know lots of people like them but i think they are horrible things to use.