When I returned to medium format film photography after a gap of about 35 years, this "brand new" Mamiya C330f was my first camera.
My Father was a forensic photographer and when I was a teenager he bought a Mamiya C330f which I thought terribly old-fashioned, being a TLR and having no exposure meter. I bought an M645 Pro and three lenses which I thought far more modern, having a prism finder and even auto exposure! I eventually sold the entire outfit to buy my first digital camera, a compact with a whopping 5MegaPixels!
I returned to film photography in 2000 using an Olympus OM4Ti which I managed to pick up “brand new”, still sealed in its box. I also bought a 50mm f1.2 lens for it, but was disappointed in the image quality I was getting from the small negatives. When I had the chance to buy a brand new Mamiya C330f I snapped it up, selling the Olympus outfit to pay for it. Of course it’s really about 45 years old but had been ordered from a dealer back in the 1970s by somebody who didn’t turn up to collect it. It sat in the dealer’s display cabinet until it was bought by a collector in the 1980s, he also kept it in a display cabinet. It was spotless, in the original box, with the slip of paper protecting the pressure plate still inside and the strap still sealed in its bag. I love using this camera despite the enormous weight and have since bought several other lenses for it, including the amazing 105DS which, unusually for a TLR, has a diaphragm in the viewing lens so you can see the depth of field, hence the DS designation.
What do I love about it? The bellows allow very close focussing, the waste level finder is big and very bright, and it's a TLR with interchangeable lenses and viewfinders, a proper system camera. The images from it are superb.
What don't I like about it? The weight! Not a camera to take on a hike.
You can see some images from the first roll of film through this camera on the Emulsive web site, where there is also a bit more information about it.
Rupert Brun
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