photo:bronicarf
Table of Contents
Bronica RF 645 medium format rangefinder film system
Introduction
- the Bronica RF645 is an interchangeable lens 6×4.5 medium format film camera introduced in 2000 but discontinued in 2005 when digital essentially resulted in the demise of the film cameras and Bronica was taken over by Tamron.
- tend to be much cheaper than second hand Mamiya rangefinders
- AE mode gives it a big advantage over the Fuji 645
- it is a nice ergonomic camera well suited to rangefinder portraiture and airplane travel (for a medium format film camera with interchangeable lenses)
- issues
- Tamron discontinued support and repairs in 2016
- some have a film advance issue causing it to freeze or jump frames
- best used with the right eye at the viewfinder
- 135mm lens is not useful and not generally available
- 100mm lenses are hard to find on the market
- older cameras with serial numbers starting with 0 don't have the 100mm lens framing
- portrait orientation of viewfinder and shots may be an issue for landscape photographers
Bronica RF645 camera
- manual focus 645 film camera that takes either 120 or 220 roll film
- vertical (“portrait”) framing due to horizontal film movement
- nice viewfinder with crisply defined edges to the rangefinder focusing patch but it is designed to be used with the right eye in a precise position to allow visibility of the viewfinder information at the left side
- leaf shutter lenses with no mechanical cocking by the body (a motor built into the lens does this instead)
- automatic cloth curtain unfolds as a “dark slide” when changing lenses (unike the Mamiyas which require manual management)
- center weighted non-TTL average metering, adjusting to the focal length mounted on the body
- requires 2x CR2 batteries to operate
- parallax-compensated viewfinders with framing for 65mm and 100mm lenses (135mm on early bodies with serial numbers starting with a “0” but the 135mm lens was too difficult to focus and thus replaced by the 100mm lens)
- when shooting at close focus, recommended aperture s f/11 given the narrow DOF and rangefinder focusing
- there is an external finder option for framing when using the 45mm lens
- self-timer
- multi-exposure possible
- standard cable-release socket on shutter release
- half press shutter to confirm exposure
- AE priority or Program exposure modes with +/- 2 EV exposure compensation and 25-1600 ISO settings
- shutter speed Bulb plus 1sec to 1/500th sec (8 sec to 1/500th in AE mode and 8sec to 1/750th in Program mode)
- hotshoe with dedicated protocol which sends aperture and ISO to the flash and thus requires Bronica Speedlight RF20 flash
- flash sync socket under the lens
- 810g
Lenses
- all have leaf shutter with a self-cocking mechanism within the lens
- Bronica Zenzanon RF 45mm/4
- close focus 1m
- Bronica Zenzanon RF 65mm/4
- most popular lens
- close focus 1m
- 300g
- Bronica Zenzanon RF 100mm/4.5
- close focus 1.2m
- fairly hard to find second hand but it is a useful portrait lens
- Bronica Zenzanon RF 135mm/4.5
- too difficult to focus and thus replaced by the 100mm lens
- rarely available
Reviews
photo/bronicarf.txt · Last modified: 2021/07/18 12:55 by gary1