Bronica ETRSi and 35MM N Film Back

May 29, 2019

Bronica ETRSi and 35MM N Film Back

You may recall that I wrote in an earlier article (Jan 2019) about some difficulties I was having with a 35mm N Film Back on my Bronica ETRSi. Long story short, it appears the steps I took back then was the correct work around in getting the film back to work. I suspect that the culprit is the dark slide because each time I removed the dark slide, the film would not wind on. I think something inside the film back was not resetting when the dark slide was removed.

Now I know how to work around using the 35mm film back, and the small amount of hassle it presented, I am wondering if I will actually use the 35mm back at all! I mean, is there an advantage to using a 35mm film on a Medium Format camera? I am thinking that the only advantage is if a photographer had only one camera and wanted to swap different films back and forth. Maybe some time in the future I might revisit the 35mm N film back but for now, I will leave the shooting of 35mm film to those cameras suited for it!

So, by the time I had experimented with the 35mm film back, taking it off and putting it back on again, I did actually get about 12 good shots out of a roll of 24. I used a Focal 100 colour film (K-Mart Brand which had expired). I miscounted the number of exposures left on the film and overwound it slightly. That resulted in the film becoming loose inside the cartridge so that I could not rewind it. That lead to another problem in that I had to take the film back to my Lab and have them remove the film from the back in the Dark Room. Shoutout to Marianne from Pro Am Colour Laboratories in Newcastle for looking after me in that respect!

Shot with a Zenzanon Eii 75mm f2.8 prime lens.