A floral outing with 120 film and a Bronica ETRSi

I'm a real sucker for G.A.S, a term that a lot of photographers use that stands for Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It's a terrible disease, where hobby photographers such as myself pour thousands of dollars into photography equipment, particularly gear that has a very specific or niche use. It's a debilitating condition, causing the patient to be surrounded by marvelous examples of precise optical engineering, which in turn makes the patient euphoric with joy (and their loved ones angry because of this month's credit card statement).

I am lucky that I am in a point in my life, where my job pays well, my wife and kids are well looked after, we're not living beyond our means and I have some small disposable income. To which I splurge on things that I think are pretty cool, even if I don't get a chance to use them that often. One example of this, is my new-to-me Bronica ETRSi.

Medium format film photography had interested me for a little while, as if involving oneself with 35mm film wasn't enough punishment to endure in 2024. I do admit, that the hipster angle did cross my mind while investigating what medium format camera to aim for – "oh yeah, this is a medium format 120 film camera, you probably have never heard of them" – so the financial mistake exclusiveness of medium format cameras did call out to me. But what to go for?

Many a Youtube review later, I was still confused. I didn't want a Hasselblad 500c (too expensive, too overrated, too hyped up by Youtube review videos) as I felt my photography skills were not good enough to warrant the supposedly head-exploding image quality that they provide. Nor did I want a Mamiya RZ67 (too expensive, too overrated, too hyped up by Youtube review videos), although its system setup was intriguing for me. And I discounted TLRs altogether, as I much prefer TTL photography.

After having a chat with my dad, my uncle, and some members of a camera club that I used to be a part of, one brand name was mentioned many times: Bronica. I hadn't heard of Bronica before, but I did some reading outside of just Wikipedia, and I was intrigued.

• A camera system that can be pulled apart into its singular components, swapped around, and put back together? Check.
• A range of lenses that the majority are considered as producing excellent quality images? Absolutely.
• Swappable film backs so I can chop and change 120 film types (ISO, black and white, colour) as much as I like? You betcha.
• Interchangeable finders such as waist level and light metering prisms? No problem.
• Not going to burn through a roll of 120 for just 10 photos? I got u fam.
• Uses a leaf shutter system, so a broken shutter just needs a new lens and not a new entire camera body? Wow.

I mean, look at the above, and look at the prices of Bronica systems on eBay, and tell me that the Mamiya 645 is a better proposition – you'd have to seriously look at the Mamiya 645 Pro-TL to get a point-by-point comparable contender, and even then the 645 Pro-TL is this blobbly plastic thing that looks oh-so-very-90s when everything was given curves, just because. And don't get me started on the mirror stop problem that the Mamiyas have.

So after a few weeks scrounging eBay for Japanese auctions, sifting through all the "Mint A++!" auctions that had a very peculiar definition of what "mint" is (apparently it sometimes means it has fungus inside, yum!) I found a reputable Japanese seller and pulled the pin. This auction was for an ETRSi with the AE-III metered prism, a speed grip (very useful), a 75mm f/2.8 PE lens and a 120 film back, and it came from Japan to Australia in about 4 days. This is my second purchase of camera equipment from Japan, and being surprised a second time about how quick delivery times are, I have come to appreciate how efficient the Japanese are with second hand camera equipment – as long as you find a good seller. The photos you see above were taken mere minutes after I plucked my ETRSi out of the box with scrunched up pages from Japanese newspapers.

After watching a few Youtube videos from other owners about how to use the ETRSi (the better ones were from Jonathan Harris and Karin Majoka), I inhaled and fed through my first roll of Kodak Gold 200 into the film back. This actually wasn't my first soirée with 120 film – I have a Franka Bonafix folding camera from the early 1950s that I've run some Fomapan 200 black and white film, which ended up in a light-leak disaster – a story for another day.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure I did things right with the Bronica, and I feel the shots that were taken here were not a total loss – hopefully you agree. These photos were taken in my parents' backyard.

My father also had a go with my Bronica ETRSi. He's a Nikon head just like me, but hadn't used a medium format camera before. After a minute or two of direction from me, he took to it like a duck to water.

... and now the photos that my father took:

My daughter also wanted to be involved. I'm sure you'd agree, she makes a great hand model.

There's some dreamy subdued tones with this combination of Bronica Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE lens and Kodak Gold 200 120 film, but I can't pinpoint to which is the cause (culprit?). It seems though that some desaturation occurs when there's some strong midday backlight (see the photo of the white Agapanthus Snowball) but I guess this just gives this lens / film combination a bit of character.

All in all I am very content with my Bronica ETRSi, and can't wait to shoot with it again. Maybe next time with some Ilford HP5 and some of my other lenses that I have acquired since – a Zenzanon PE 50mm f/2.8 and a Zenzanon MC 200mm f/4.5. Exciting times ahead!

What I think of the Bronica ETRSi

The Bronica ETRSi is an excellent 6×4.5 120 film medium camera. It has a somewhat large lens library (okay, not as many as Nikon's, but still!) and it takes excellent photographs. The lenses are well built, and are leaf shutter, meaning no flash sync speeds. If your shutter dies on you, you just need to replace the lens, rather than the entire camera body.

Speaking of the camera body, it is extremely well built, and feels rather tough. Although the body is heavy to hand-hold, the materials used feel high quality and you are assured that controls, buttons and dials will not break on you. The safeties built into the camera system, especially the dark slide interlock, makes sure that you do not waste film firing the shutter with something enabled or inserted that will ordinarily prevent a photo from being taken.

The accessories in turn are also built to a high quality. The speed grip, while mechanical, interconnects with the bottom plate and winder connection with satisfying clicks, and the extra locking mechanism on the bottom plate instills confidence that the speed grip is not going to fail and drop your camera. The finders are satisfying to click into the top of the camera body, and the magnifying glass in the waist level finder is gratifying to flick out into action, almost as much as folding it away again after use. The removable film backs are well engineered, and include flick-out winder cranks for easy film loading and advancing. And with the film backs being removable, if you decide mid-roll that you want to shoot a different ISO or film stock, you can easily swap out one film back for another (of course, you would need multiple film backs with you).

No camera system is perfect though, and the ETRSi is no exception. Shutter speed bottoms out at 1/500th of a second, it would've been nice if there was up to 1/1000th at least. The 4LR44 battery that goes into a cavity in the bottom plate is not a common size, and the battery doors here are known to go bad (and of course, there's no replacements around). The focusing screen ground glass is also easy to scratch, but this and the battery door are literally the two things you need to baby this.

I'm just some random dude on the internet that happens to like cameras a lot, so take my word with a pinch of salt. But I do really think the Bronica ETRSi is a sleeper. The influencers are fawning over the Hasselblad 500 series and Mamiya RZ67s, but if I were you I would also consider the ETRSi (or its sister camera, the SQ series) – before prices start jumping dramatically.