From the course: Douglas Kirkland on Photography: Shooting with a Medium-Format Camera

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Getting to know the Mamiya RZ67

Getting to know the Mamiya RZ67

So here we are in our studio, and today I want to show you something about medium format, something that's been very important to me through my career. And today we are going to start with the RZ Mamiya, or some people call it the R Zed, and this is the basic camera. A camera like this is a little different than what you are accustomed to seeing. For one thing, we are looking straight down like that, and you might have a little trouble at first with it because things tend to move the opposite way, because there is a mirror inside here that you're looking at. However, we can use a pentaprism and make it the same as what you are accustomed to seeing with your 35 millimeters or similar digital camera. The way I do it is I have focus here and my finger is over here on this button. That's where I take the pictures from. And with this version of the camera, you do that and that moves the film forward and cocks the shutter each time. But this is the really cool thing, look at this. This is a…

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