It occurred to me recently that I only owned one TLR! Although many have passed through my possession, only the Lubitel 166 stayed. This had to be changed, so a post was put on a Camera Collectors group online for suggestions. The brief was simple - it had to be interesting, and not expensive.

Whilst there were plenty of suggestions, none really hit the spot, but a comment saying to go for a cousin of a popular model got me thinking. For example don’t buy the hyped Rolleiflex, but a Rolleicord instead. This led to me searching for a Mamiya - I used a C330 at University and it had the qualities I was looking for. With C330’s and C33’s too expensive, I discovered the C3. In my opinion the C3 is actually better looking with the silver front, and it was a half the price!

My new C3 came with the Waist Level Finder, Porroflex Prism and additional Hand Grip, and stated as fully working, except 1s and 1/2s which were a bit slow. It arrived in the best packaging I have ever seen - the seller had cut out foam pieces to line and protect the camera. It is in really nice condition and fits the original brief perfectly and is better than what I thought I would end up with.

Loaded with some fresh Kodak Gold 200 I took it out for a test shoot…

This first frame on the roll of the telephone box came out exactly as I imagined, shot at f5.6 the background is slightly softened, and the detail is excellent. I think this the sharpest lens on any of my cameras.

I only used the waist level screen for this roll, as the Porroflex prism was just an added bonus to the lot, rather than something I wanted. The view through the ground glass is fantastic, and precise focusing easy with the flip out magnifier. First impressions were very good.

The next few shots were rather mediocre, but that was down to me rather than the camera. I was questioning the winder lever, as it didn’t seem to rotate very far. Answers on Google suggested the turn should be just under a full rotation, but I was only getting half a turn before it locked into place! It wasn’t until frame 12 when I discovered the frame window on the back, which confirmed it was actually on number 12! All that worry about frame spacing was for nothing!

For the last two, I headed to a wooded path with some early Autumn colour, and a touch of mist.

The shots which didn’t come out that well were metered with my TTatisan Lightmeter 2, which is not as good in my opinion as my trusty old Leningrad 4 analogue meter. The only drawback to the Leningrad is in low light where it doesn’t go low enough.

Luckily these last two were metered with the Leningrad, which got it bang on as usual. The atmosphere has been captured perfectly.

Unfortunately I had descended below the mist for the last one, but the detail is incredible and given that it was on Kodak Gold, imagine what a premium film will produce. All but one shots were on a tripod to get the best out of the camera, and give the ability to concentrate on composition and settings better.

I have been holding off shooting the second roll until the scans came back from the lab in case there were any issues, but they are awesome!

The whole idea was to get a better TLR than my Lubitel, but the C3 is just another level completely. Not only are the images it produces excellent, it is a very nice camera to use too. I have quickly fallen in love with this camera, and can’t wait to get out with it again soon…

My new TLR - Mamiya C3

Broken cameras…