zedorzee's Full Review: Mamiya RZ67 ProII Medium Format Film Camera
I bought this camera because I'm not a big fan of square negatives, and I didn't think 645 negatives were quite big enough.
I owned the camera for a year. In the studio or with assistants, it's a wonderful piece of equipment -- it gives razor sharp 6x7 negatives, the close focusing capabilities are great, and everything is quite durable.
I especially appreciated this camera's ease of use (with a couple of exceptions):
- The film backs are easy to load, and they rotate on the camera body to provide both horizontal and vertical framing.
- Making multiple exposures is very simple.
- Advancing the film, cocking the shutter, and pulling the mirror into place is done with one smooth thumb motion -- no crank winding.
- Fine and coarse focusing knobs make focusing fast and accurate, even when shooting macro work with an extremely shallow depth of field.
However, I sold it earlier this summer (2000), because I don't usually work in a studio or have assistants. The system is rather large and heavy, and doesn't always want to balance in your hand. The body plus two lenses and a couple of film backs takes up considerable space, which makes it hard to take places.
In addition, there's no easy way to get the mirror locked-up. It's a somewhat complex process that takes a bit of time. If you think you'll need to do any MLU work, keep the lens and body manuals handy. The mirror noise is also quite loud, which startles some people.
All things considered, if you're a studio-based photographer and you enjoy the speed of medium format, the Mamiya RZ Pro II is a fantastic camera for you. Otherwise, consider the smaller Pentax 67II, or a 6x6 or 645 camera. I ended up buying a Mamiya 645 Pro TL system because it travels easily and still yields negs 3x larger than 35mm -- good enough for magazines and the portraiture I do.
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