PhotographerI’d long been hankering after a 6x6 TLR, and when I saw that Mr. Cad in Croydon was having a 50% off sale, I felt that the time to pounce on one was perfect. Was this a great decision? I’m still not sure. Yes, it cost me £200 for the pristine body and 3 pristine lenses, which isn’t the cheapest I could’ve got it for I’m sure, but on the other hand I also got to have a poke around Mr. Cad. For those of you who’ve never been there, it lays claim to the title of ‘Best Stocked European Used Dealer’, and as a result is a complete treasure trove. You name it, likely as not they have it, or could at least get their hands on one with relative ease.
After having a look around I finally decided on the C330, mainly because it’s built like a tank, and the quality feels the equal of my MP. It was pretty clean already, but there were a couple of marks in the finder. Those were gotten rid of easily enough with my Rocket Blower, and made it more or less ‘fresh from the factory’ in terms of minty freshness.
The first time I loaded it up with film I managed to get my finger trapped and ripped half of my thumbnail off. Good start. After that though, everything began to gel.
Yes, getting used to a horizontally inverted viewfinder is a bit of a chore, but I like to think that it focuses the mind on composition as it abstracts the image from its real-life counterpart. Plus it confuses anyone else who picks up the camera, as does the fact that it has two lenses (“is that a 3D camera?” “No” “Oh, that’s less cool then”).
The finder has a good ‘snap’ to it and is also fairly bright, albeit not as bright as a rangefinder VF or a 35mm SLR with a fast (f/1.4 or better) lens on it. That doesn’t bother me too much, as the C330 is definitely a camera for a tripod when the light begins to get low given how heavy it is, and the fact that the fastest lens going is ‘only’ f/2.8. That said I’ve taken it around the beach by my place on the coast, and don’t find it too stressful to use as a walkabout camera, but I get the feeling that I’m going to be using more as something for pre-meditated work and probably the odd bit of portraiture. YMMV.
The focussing is lovely and smooth whilst still retaining an impression of very high precision, whilst the winder feels a little cheap compared to the rest of the camera. Mind you, I’ve been spoiled by my other main cameras, so I’m probably not one to comment on this too comprehensively other than to say that it doesn’t feel as buttery as the winder on an MP.
So far the impressions of this camera seem pretty good. I’ll try to find some time to develop the resulting negs and see what’s really what, the results will be up here at some point, I assure you.
Hope you all had a great New Year’s Eve and are wrestling with your hangovers (which we all know the be the marker of a truly great night) as we speak. Here’s to a film rich new year.
