I am lucky enough to have my own medium format camera in terms of a twin reflex camera. The Yashica 635 was handed down to me and shoots both 35mm film and 120mm film. Although upon shooting and developing this film I realised that the film had come out square. This meant that rather than 10 shots I got 12 from my 120mm film. More often than not the camera name indicates the size of the film it shoots. If 120mm is the length of medium format it can be any size within that. For example the Mamiya 67 shoots 6×7 negatives. I do prefer the square images that I have produced using this camera although the quality of the lenses has not been very good compared with the sharpness of the Mamiya 67 lens.
Another thing to consider with a twin reflex camera is the slight parallax when taking the images. Firstly the image appears upside down in the view finder this is due to the viewing lens bouncing off a mirror. The viewing lens is at the top of the camera and the taking lens is below. A gap that has to be noted in consideration with the composition of the image.
The image above is a scan of my final print for the pin up session. I am really pleased with this shoot however I want to continue to use the Mamiya camera as it definitely has a better quality lens, you can see the difference. I really like my subject matter of this shoot too. Portraiture without human form is very interesting.
©samanthajaneriley
REP Samantha Jane Riley 