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Polaroid 600 SE with Polaroid backs, NPC 545 back (MF-35),
rollfilm backs, and (on right) 75mm f/5.6 lens. The finder
for the 75mm is missing because of a recent move.
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It's a brute: there's
no doubt about that. With a 6x9cm back, 75mm lens, and finder, it's
over 8" (200mm) tall and weighs well over 6 lbs or around 3 kg.
That's one of the biggest, heaviest combinations, but the others
aren't a lot lighter. This is a camera you can use with roll film,
Polaroid pack film, Polaroid 4x5" sheet film, and conventional
"wet" 4x5" film. Everything is manual: shutter speeds
(1 sec to 1/500 sec), aperture setting, and focusing via a big, bright,
coupled, parallax compensated range/viewfinder. There's no automation
or batteries to get in the way: this is a purist's camera. It's
a real user, not something to stick on a shelf, and it has no real modern
equivalent.
Its simplicity and versatility, though, are only two of the three reasons
why I like it so much. The other is that it delivers gorgeous quality
on the rollfilm formats that I like to use--and I'm hoping
to extend its versatility
still further.
The camera was based on the last generation of Mamiya Press, the Universal,
though the lenses aren't interchangeable between the two cameras:
the Mamiya lenses weren't designed to cover the 72x93mm of Polaroid
quarter-plate pack film. In fact, if you can get hold of a Polaroid
back for the Mamiya Press, you'll see that the corners vignette.