Mamiya C220 TLR camera review

If you are curious about medium format photography but the price of the cameras scare you, this is your ticket. Pictures with this humble twin lens reflex camera will casually crush any picture taken with a 35mm film camera. Granted, it is a weird looking camera and people will laugh at you. In fact, I was roundly ridiculed at a wedding when I showed up with this camera; I was the recipient of scorn by all the photographers toting wiz-bang digital gizmos. Needless to say, everyone stopped laughing when they saw the prints afterwards. No, the lenses on this camera are not up to the same standard as the superlative Zeiss and Schneider lenses for the Rollei 6008i, but you didn't plan on spending your entire life-savings either.

For the uninitiated, a twin lens reflex camera has two lenses, one above the other. The photographer looks through the top lens via a chimney finder while the actual picture is taken with the bottom lens. This arrangement gets rid of the need for a large mirror used in SLR cameras (a source of vibration). Additionally, the camera is quiet without a mirror-slap and the photographer can see the subject's expression even while the shutter has tripped. The disadvantages of a TLR, in general, are parallax and depth of field woes. As the photographer views the image through a lens situated above the actual picture-taking lens, parallax errors develop, especially for close-ups. I have never really found this to be a problem as Mamiya includes a useful scale on the camera to let you know, for example, if you are in imminent danger of cutting off the bride's head. Depth of field can be more of a problem. In general, medium format cameras have much less depth of field than their 35mm counterparts. Focus is therefore critical. If one focuses on a subject's eye, for instance, with the lens wide open (an f-stop of 2.8 in the case of the Mamiya's standard lens of 80mm) everything outside of 2cm behind and in front of the eye will be out of focus. TLR users cannot stop down the viewing lens to actually see what is in focus and what is not.

Compared to the venerable Rollei TLR, this camera is quite heavy and somewhat unwieldy to hold. In its favor, the Mamiya TLR has interchangeable lenses. I have never bothered to buy any but they can be found on ebay and other second-hand camera outlets. The black-coated lenses are reputed to be quite good. The focusing screen on the camera is quite dim compared to the Rollei, however, I find that it is easier to focus than the Rollei. Images just seem to snap into focus. The focusing screen can be replaced by third-party screens from Beattie or Maxwell, if so desired. What's great about this camera is the bellows focusing. This allows the photographer to focus extremely closely with the normal lens. As mentioned previously, however, depth of field and parallax problems are magnified by a close subject distance.

The Mamiya TLR was once the king of wedding photography. Today, if you take this camera along to a wedding, not only will you look weird but you will be s-l-o-w. People just don't have patience anymore as they wait for you to meter the scene, compose, focus the camera (manually), set the shutter speed, set the aperture, check the DOF scale, check the parallax scale, cock the shutter, recompose, fire the shutter just as the bride blinks and then do it all over again. I have heard of people zone focusing and "guestimating" exposure from experience to speed up the process, but I'm not one! This camera makes a good travel camera, albeit a heavy one. For landscapes, however, I would not recommend this camera, although great landscape photographs can certainly be taken with it. In my opinion, a SLR is ideal for landscapes.

If you decide to buy one of these cameras make sure that you check to see if the focusing bellows are intact. Also, check to see if the shutter on the taking-lens is working properly. I suspect that my shutter sticks from time to time judging from some random overexposed slide frames; I am certain my exposure calculation was correct on these occasions.

Film loading is relatively straight-forward and one can use both 120 (12 exposures) and 220 (24 exposures) film with a twist of a pressure-plate. Multiple exposures are also possible with this camera. There is no built-in light-meter, so make sure you walk with either a hand-held light-meter or another camera with light-metering capabilities.

In summary, this is a good entry into medium format photography. For my purposes, which is largely dominated by landscape photography, I prefer direct-view cameras and better lenses. I keep the Mamiya around as a backup.