Warm Christmas
We made the excessively long drive back to Oklahoma for the holidays this year, and I decided it was a good opportunity to break in the RB67. I packed up my RB67, the 180mm f4.5, my brother’s Rollei that I’ve been borrowing since the before times, about a dozen rolls of 120, a couple digital bodies, a handful of 50mm lenses, cords, cables, straps, and just about anything else I could justify for a week long trip of family seclusion. If it isn’t evident, I have problems packing efficiently for trips like that.I had lofty goals of stopping along the way for things that looked interesting but that clearly didn’t happen. Not because there wasn’t anything interesting between the Hudson River and the Arkansas River, but because 24 hours of driving in 2 days doesn’t leave a lot of room for pleasure stops. When we did make it to Oklahoma, the RB67 was just about the only camera that left a bag or case, and the record setting days of 70 degrees meant I spent a lot of time shooting outside around the house and farm.
Because of the location of the cold shoe on the side of the RB67 I still haven’t decided on a light meter yet, so most of the rolls ended up getting shot with a quick meter from my phone before the first shot, then just eyeballing exposure values after the fact. After shooting around a hundred frames on the RB67 that way though, I’m starting to get a lot more comfortable just trusting my gut. I initially grabbed the Mamiya 180mm f4.5 C because I wanted something cheap to make sure the body worked before investing in some more expensive glass. Now though, I’m just in love with the lens. I’ve always found myself gravitating towards the long side of normal or short side of telephoto, wanting something in the 65mm to 90mm range for most shooting. I thought I would want to find a 127mm f3.5 KL as soon as I could, but the 180mm is just such a beautiful lens. The out of focus rendering is smooth, fall off isn’t busy, it’s sharp enough wide open for close portraits, and the color rendition is gorgeous. I still expect I’ll track down a few more lenses for the system because I have gear acquisition problems, but I also expect the 180mm will be the lens on the body the majority of the time.
Since we got back from Oklahoma before the new year, the 67 has been sitting on the shelf. Getting these scans back is definitely going to make me refresh my Ektar stock and find something new to shoot soon.