Never meet your heroes. Whomever or whatever hero you have, they can never live up to your expectations. I speak, by the way, from experience in that regard. Working as a technology salesman some years ago, I was fortunate enough to have among my customers people like Scotty Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Bill Kurtis. And of course, all very nice and friendly people. But people, just wanting to buy a Palm Pilot or a new keyboard, or looking at how many different mice and trackball options there were. It’s easy to believe that our heroes must love us as much as we love them, but they don’t; our heroes are friendly because they’re required to be and we don’t, honestly, have any effect on their lives. That realization represents the reason we should never meet our heroes – we can never give to them what they have to us and that disappointment ruins our already one-sided relationship.
The RB67 was, for a long time, my photographic hero. I wanted to carry it in a backpack up mountains and photograph alpine lakes and waterfalls in their stunning glory as reproduced by some stunningly good Mamiya lenses. I invested in film holders and a few lenses. And then I tried walking on a flat trail with it all. I finished those four short miles with arms that could not scratch my head, bruises that ringed my shoulders like aiguillettes, and a back that defied comfort on my bed for three days.
In my great wisdom, I elected to try that again, a few more times, the last of them being my first winter in Colorado on what, to me now but definitely not then, is a rather modest little hill. My last hike with the RB67, again in snow, again on a little hill, this time in Breckenridge, was enough.
These are beautifully designed cameras, somewhat complex but heartily robust. They have earned, and proven this many times over, that they are worthy titleholders as film’s workhorses. Professionals, for decades, relied on these and that they still work and generally work reliably ought to be praise enough in and of itself.
The RB67 gets so many things right – it optimizes the SLR form, provides photographers all the information they need and in logical places, and backs the system with some of the best medium-format lenses ever designed. The only real drawback is the system’s significant weight. Some film holders, some film, some lenses, and the camera weighs more than my entire 8X10 photography kit.
The RB67 is a studio camera and it lives well on a tripod. If you do take it with you, it can be used handheld, but again, lives well on a tripod. This should not be the first camera you gravitate to, either. They are not forgiving; they will not correct your mistakes. The RB67 expects you to know your craft and be good at it already. And if that’s you, this camera will work well and reliably for you.
For me, though, this camera ended up not being the one that I wanted – too heavy and too large to carry around easily. The RB67 did introduce me to SLRs with this design ideal and, if I’m honest, the RB67 layout is definitely my favorite SLR layout. So if you get this and find it to be just a bit too much, compromising with a 6X6 or a 645, and I chose the former, may be right up your alley.
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Mamiya RB67 Video Manual 1 of 2: Features, Use, Interface, Layout, Design, Function, & Camera Basics
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Mamiya RB67 Video Manual 2 of 2: Operation, Mount Lens, Load Film, Flash Use, & Double Exposures
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"Stay Forever (Instrumental Version)" by Origo and "Vista" by Dye O used under active license from Epidemic Sound at the time of this video's upload.
