When I recently got my first results from this camera back from the lab I was worried that there might still be something wrong. The scans had a thin and very straight line in them, always in the same place.
I went back to the lab and showed them the scans, they agreed to scan the negatives again. Today I got those result back and there is no more weird line. Yay! That means it's not an issue with my camera but their scanning process.
You can see the vertical line in the fist image and it's not present in the second scan of that same shot.
(They also did the second scan in TIFF format with much higher dynamic range and less padding in the histogram, that's why there's so much more contrast in that one.)
So, after shooting medium format on the #SL66 all day, I have a few things to report:
1: I absolutely love this camera. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a camera as much as this one.
2: I need a light meter. Using a phone app for metering is cumbersome and not fun.
3: For the first time ever, I’ve had the courage to ask strangers if I could take a picture of them. And they said yes! I think this camera does make this easier because people get immediately interested in it, ask questions, and once you have a conversation going, they’re much more comfortable, and I am too.
4: sadly I messed up one of those portraits, and a whole roll of film with it. I had to change rolls for this shot but I was nervous due to the situation and messed up the spooling of the film so the exposure landed on the paper part, not the actual film. And in trying to fix the incorrect position of the film, I ended up spooling it all the way, which is irreversible outside of a darkroom.
4b: what was lost was only that one exposure, and a roll of empty film. Could have been far worse. But it’s still a shame because I think that portrait would have been great. They had an impeccable outfit and were overall a very photogenic person. The lesson from this is to load film immediately so that it’s ready and the hectic situation that produce mistakes are avoided, especially with a finicky camera like this one.
5: using top-down viewfinders is great when wearing glasses. I can comfortably look at the image for focusing without taking them off which is really difficult with rear-viewfinder cameras. Also the huge size of the viewfinder makes focusing a breeze, it’s great.
6: As expected, you do draw a lot of attention with this camera. It’s the opposite of covert 😅
The reason for the film-roll fuckup was this: 120 roll film has a paper lead part that’s maybe 30cm long before the actual sensitive film starts. When putting it into the magazine, you need to advance the roll quite a bit before the first exposure can be taken. It’s possible to skip this skep and not notice.
On 35mm film cameras it’s different. The entire roll of film is sensitive and you just “skip” a few exposures by advancing the film and releasing the shutter. The exposure counter usually has a few steps before “1” to reflect that.
The #SL66 though resets its counter to “1” as soon as you open the magazine and you have to spool off the paper lead with a separate wheel before locking into “loaded” mode again. But the camera doesn’t know if you’ve actually done this and will start counting when you pull the main crank.
You have to cock the shutter mechanism BEFORE putting in a new roll of film. Because after the loading procedure, the exposure counter is on “1” and if the shutter isn’t already cocked and you have to crank it once, you loose the first exposure.
Alternatively, if you do forget this, you can treat the first frame as a double exposure, even though it has seen any light yet. There’s a little switch in the main crank that lets you cock the shutter without advancing the film.
This is also a kitty feature of this camera: in-camera multi exposure. Most 35mm and digital cameras can’t do this at all.
Eine #SL66 ist in der Handhabung, insbesondere beim Rollentausch, eine Endgegnerin.
Mir war das bislang leider verwehrt, ein solches Teil zu handhaben.
Advice:
Üben Sie den Filmrollentausch, ohne Hinzusehen & vor’m Go-live, unter einem lichtundurchlässigen Tuch, am besten mit billigstem Wegwerf-Filmmaterial und einer mechanischen Kamera, bis Sie das auch mit einer Augenbinde können. Mir hat das sehr geholfen.
BTW:
Hier liegt ein mechanischer Belichtungsmesser für Sie:)
It can be repaired but it'll be around 300€. I definitely want to preserve this camera and I'm thinking maybe crowdfunding at least part of this expense could be a thing?
If you want to help get this unusual camera (of which there aren't that many around anymore) restored to working order, I'd appreciate it a lot. Thanks 💜
Good news, the #SL66 is repaired already and I can pick it up later this week! The repair guy said “the bulky thing took up too much space” so he did it quickly 😂
Back home, unpacked. So, here's the thing that might get me back to analog photography: A Rolleiflex S66 medium format SLR released in 1966 that @jillpls had sitting in a closet since forever. This one was probably manufactured in the 70s, judging by the serial number.
It has some technical issues though: the mechanism seems stuck in the "released" position with the mirror flipped up and the film transport crank locked. I'll try to get it fixed and hopefully this beauty can have a second chance.
If anyone knows an address in Berlin where I can get it looked at by someone who knows this camera's mechanism well, that'd be much appreciated. I'd rather not try to fix this myself. Would be a shame to ruin this device by accident.
Its focus mechanism is unusual as it isn't built into the lens as with most modern lenses but the camera body has an integrated bellows that moved the entire lens back and forth to focus the image onto the film. This bellows mechanism also has a built-in vertical tilt for manipulating the plane of focus. Usually this would require a specialised tilting lens.
Many lenses for this camera also have the same bayonet on both ends meaning they can be flipped around for macro-photography and still be focused and tilted via the bellows mechanism.
Due to the larger format of 6x6cm, a 50mm lens that would be a "normal" lens on a "full-frame" camera (like a Sony AR7 or most film cameras) is a slight wide angle lens on this system, roughly equivalent to a 35mm lens on "full-frame". The "normal" lens for the SL66 is an 80mm (like the Planar 80mm f/2.8 seen in the photos above).
This camera sold for 1,300 USD at its debut in 1966. Doesn't seem that much compared to what today's professional cameras cost, until you consider inflation and realise that this would be a $12,000 camera today.
In the 1960s and 70s, this was very much the highest end stuff available.
Luckily the 120 format film used in this camera is still widely available today and can be developed at home and then used for analog photo prints or digitally scanned at very high resolution (like hundreds of megapixels).
So once this thing works again it is very much still an excellent camera that can do stuff that no "full-frame" DSLR or mirrorless system can do at all. Digital medium format cameras are made today too but they can cost as much as a fancy car so I'll probably never get my hands on one.
Here’s a really cool street photography video featuring the #SL66, less on the technical side but more actual use. And damn, those shots they take there are gorgeous. https://youtu.be/ec0z9nEWycw