The Photography Purchase Confessional Thread (GAS)

[Gromit]

One nice thing about K-mount lenses (especially non-OEM) is that there can be some great buys out there, especially for glass which might be considered 'unfashionable' perhaps. Picked up this nigh on spotless Tamron yesterday. I know the 90 has a great reputation, but the Pentax 100 Macro is so good (and not expensive itself) that folk seem to ignore it.

90 Macro on K-1 by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

Shot with the K-5iis...

Bleeding hearts 2 by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

K-1...

Horse chestnut close by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

 

[Mark LJ]

I did indeed swap to the Q3. But I was given quite a nice deal and it was an end of year purchase for me. Part of the deal is to run a Leica day in Torridon which will be fun. I have always argued against cropping but I don't think there are a lot of ways round it sometimes with a fixed 28mm lens. But 60mp gives you even more leeway. But it was also the capabilities of the new sensor with the better high ISO and excellent DR that was a biggie for me. Unfortunately, the camera has arrived at the same time as dreadful weather, my mother being poorly and currently I'm stuck indoors with Covid

 

[Sonority]

Had a notification from Really Right stuff that the Q3 plate was back in stock and available.
Went and ordered it, tried to pay - to find Uk, GB, England etc missing from the places they ship to.
googled shipping to the UK from RRS and :-
"DUE TO CHANGES IN VAT/DUTIES LAW, STARTING NOVEMBER 17, 2021, WE CAN ONLY SHIP TO THE UK FOR ORDERS OVER $400. If you are ordering goods online for your own personal use, you may have to pay Customs Duty and/or Import VAT on top of the Really Right Stuff purchase price/ship cost."

So thats that banjaxed.
Excellent. The joy of shopping in the UK.

I'll have a look and see if an importer has any in the UK, but that has been fruitless to date.

 

[Mr Perceptive]

Had a notification from Really Right stuff that the Q3 plate was back in stock and available.
Went and ordered it, tried to pay - to find Uk, GB, England etc missing from the places they ship to.
googles shipping to the UK from RRS and :-
"DUE TO CHANGES IN VAT/DUTIES LAW, STARTING NOVEMBER 17, 2021, WE CAN ONLY SHIP TO THE UK FOR ORDERS OVER $400. If you are ordering goods online for your own personal use, you may have to pay Customs Duty and/or Import VAT on top of the Really Right Stuff purchase price/ship cost."

So thats that banjaxed.
Excellent. The joy of shopping in the UK.

I'll have a look and see if an importer has any in the UK, but that has been fruitless to date.

Might be interested in one as well, if that would take it over the US$400 mark - PM me if interested in ordering together

 

[Sonority]

Will have to email them as adding 2 to basket takes to above required, but still no shipping to the UK.

 

[JTC]

OK, so I bought Andrew's Mamiya C220 TLR. And rather nice it is too. Will have to wait until I get some film for it - I ordered some new Tri-X and Pan-F, and also Cesare offered to send me a few rolls of 'cryogenic' Pan-F, but until either arrives it's theoretical photography time. I've given it a good check over - best I can without putting film through it - and done some very rough calibrations on the Seiko shutter (which seems spot-on for the slowest shutter speeds, faster ones I can't measure) and have found a suitable RRS Arca plate for it so I can tripod mount it. Looking forward to my 'slow photography' journey, once I have film

 

[Mark LJ]

Might be interested in one as well, if that would take it over the US$400 mark - PM me if interested in ordering together

Thats a nice looking L bracket. In the past I've always bought L brackets for every camera I've had. But I bought the Lim leather half case for the Q3

 

[MartinC]

OK, so I bought Andrew's Mamiya C220 TLR. And rather nice it is too. Will have to wait until I get some film for it - I ordered some new Tri-X and Pan-F, and also Cesare offered to send me a few rolls of 'cryogenic' Pan-F, but until either arrives it's theoretical photography time. I've given it a good check over - best I can without putting film through it - and done some very rough calibrations on the Seiko shutter (which seems spot-on for the slowest shutter speeds, faster ones I can't measure) and have found a suitable RRS Arca plate for it so I can tripod mount it. Looking forward to my 'slow photography' journey, once I have film

I have a C330 and a C220, haven't used the C220 yet but honestly it seems a better bet if you want to carry it around, the C330 is darned heavy and the only real advantage I can see is the automatic cocking of the shutter with the film advance. Since they use the same lenses the image quality should be identical. BTW if you have or get a 55mm lens, make sure to get the Mamiya lens hood as the 55mm is prone to flare, the hood is kind of goofy, with a moveable top section. Mine had no instructions and took me a wile to figure out, when you fit the hood and are viewing you angle the top blade of the lens hood such that you essentially don't see it in the viewfinder, then to take the shot flip it down, quite a neat design in reality!

 

[cctaylor]

My birthday present to myself has arrived

IMG20240522201237 by Cecil Taylor, on Flickr

 

[JTC]

Update on the C220. Whilst I haven't yet finished the first roll - mainly due to finalising the clearing and sale of my dad's place, which has totally consumed all free time for weeks now - I have however found time to add a 135/3.5 chrome and 180/3.5 black Mamiya TLR lens to compliment the 80/2.8 blue dot. I got both - which seem to be in great condition - for a surprisingly low price on Ebay. Away this Friday on a solo van trip (plus dog) up to a loch to unwind with the C220 and also the XH2. Plus sausages cooked on the RidgeMonkey (our ritual father/doggie-daughter treat)

 

[Mr Perceptive]

Finally got hold of the RRS L Bracket for the Q3 - had to order from B&H in New York, as @Sonority discovered RRS will not deal direct with individuals from overseas! Its very neat (and lightweight) and still allows access to battery and card slot. It is machined from a single piece of alloy and has a little retaining lug to stop camera rotating. Only issue I can see is that the allen bolt is not automatically retained in the frame (I can see that getting lost!). Amazingly I managed to snag a second user one (minor mark on it, but it came with the wrong size Allen Key!). @Mark LJ


Q3-RRS by David Yeoman, on Flickr

 

[John Barry]

Finally got hold of the RRS L Bracket for the Q3 - had to order from B&H in New York, as @Sonority discovered RRS will not deal direct with individuals from overseas! Its very neat (and lightweight) and still allows access to battery and card slot. It is machined from a single piece of alloy and has a little retaining lug to stop camera rotating. Only issue I can see is that the allen bolt is not automatically retained in the frame (I can see that getting lost!). Amazingly I managed to snag a second user one (minor mark on it, but it came with the wrong size Allen Key!). @Mark LJ

RRS L brackets are indeed well designed, manufactured & finished. I managed to get a pristine used one for my Fuji from a UK supplier. The fact that they provide easy access to battery & side ports is a nice feature, & I've never regretted spending the extra over some of the more generic offerings

 

[Mr Perceptive]

RRS L brackets are indeed well designed, manufactured & finished. I managed to get a pristine used one for my Fuji from a UK supplier. The fact that they provide easy access to battery & side ports is a nice feature, & I've never regretted spending the extra over some of the more generic offerings

I have one for the GFX as well, a bargain second user one from eBay Portugal !!!!!

 

[Sonority]

Mine is apparently on way from NY - quoting 4 days, but I imagine a little longer when they add in DHL charges etc.

 

[JTC]

Won another C220 lens on Ebay over the weekend - the 55/3.5, complete with hood and original box (!!). On the subject of which, I took it with me on a short trip away up to Loch Katrine and had a wee film loading disaster, ruining a new roll of HP4+ in the process. Not sure exactly what went wrong, the C220 just didn't stop at position 1 like it's meant to and continued on. I had to remove it and chuck it after consulting the web to see if I could wind it fully onto the takeup spool and then move the full thing onto the film spool and repeat (in theory winding it backwards) but, no, you can't. I was a bit nervous about putting a new roll of Tri-X which I also took with me, but it seems to have loaded ok so perhaps I did something stupid, or - less likely - the winding mechanism needs some attention. No photos back from it yet but will send my first roll away shortly....

 

[Mr Perceptive]

Mine is apparently on way from NY - quoting 4 days, but I imagine a little longer when they add in DHL charges etc.

I got mine in about 4-5 days, it was surprisingly fast!!

 

[andrewd]

Won another C220 lens on Ebay over the weekend - the 55/3.5, complete with hood and original box (!!). On the subject of which, I took it with me on a short trip away up to Loch Katrine and had a wee film loading disaster, ruining a new roll of HP4+ in the process. Not sure exactly what went wrong, the C220 just didn't stop at position 1 like it's meant to and continued on. I had to remove it and chuck it after consulting the web to see if I could wind it fully onto the takeup spool and then move the full thing onto the film spool and repeat (in theory winding it backwards) but, no, you can't. I was a bit nervous about putting a new roll of Tri-X which I also took with me, but it seems to have loaded ok so perhaps I did something stupid, or - less likely - the winding mechanism needs some attention. No photos back from it yet but will send my first roll away shortly....

Sorry to hear that. Looking at the thread below perhaps it is caused by the film back not being completely latched at both sides? Perhaps worth experimenting with the ruined HP5 roll to see if the problem can be reproduced. You will need to manually load it onto a new spool first so that the part that was originally in the centre of the spool is again at the centre. The reason for this is this is that the film is attached to the paper at one end only.

Film transport issues are not widely reported on this model, so fingers crossed it was just a one-off. From memory its a relatively simple feeler mechanism that detects if there is a film loaded.

Mamiya C220 advance film problems

I finally shot my first roll with my Mamiya C 220 after reading as much as I could on the camera. But in the second shot I started noticing a troubling behaviour... sometimes after firing the shutter, the film would not advance. I had the body set to "Single" Exposure. But then I move to Multiple...

www.photo.net

 

[Pete MB&D]

Any one feeling flush? can you buy this for me?

Nikon Ai 2.8/6mm Fisheye-Nikkor Auto 220� EXTREMELY RARE MUSEUM PIECES ca.1981 | eBay

It is an extraordinary opportunity to find one in this good condition. Introduced in 1972, the 2.8/6mm Fisheye-Nikkor is one of the most famous and remarkable lenses ever made. It has got a massive field of view of 220° maintaining an impressive speed of f:2.8!

www.ebay.co.uk

Pete

 

[Cesare]

Won another C220 lens on Ebay over the weekend - the 55/3.5, complete with hood and original box (!!). On the subject of which, I took it with me on a short trip away up to Loch Katrine and had a wee film loading disaster, ruining a new roll of HP4+ in the process. Not sure exactly what went wrong, the C220 just didn't stop at position 1 like it's meant to and continued on. I had to remove it and chuck it after consulting the web to see if I could wind it fully onto the takeup spool and then move the full thing onto the film spool and repeat (in theory winding it backwards) but, no, you can't. I was a bit nervous about putting a new roll of Tri-X which I also took with me, but it seems to have loaded ok so perhaps I did something stupid, or - less likely - the winding mechanism needs some attention. No photos back from it yet but will send my first roll away shortly....

I've got the 80/2.8 and 65/3.5 for my C3, both blue dot versions, and they are excellent. I haven't tried any of their other lenses, but i expect, being Mamiya, they are all excellent.

As for film winding on issues, that does sound like there's a fault. I'd have kept that film and used it to practice with, as although it's tricky to wind it back together and use it, you can do a good enough job to test out the loading mechanism.

 

[andrewd]

The manual does make a specific mention of potential problems with the automatic film stopper on page 7: ‘Unless the back is closed tightly, the automatic film stopper will not work’. There is a photo in the manual showing the method to close the back door with two thumbs in each top corner. This is the method I used without any issues. Fingers crossed that further testing shows this is the cause. Keep me posted.

https://www.cameramanuals.org/mamiya_pdf/mamiya_c220.pdf