Bronica ETRSi Long Term Impression: More Than a Budget Hasselblad?
The Zenza Bronica series of cameras are said to be a budget Hasselblad alternative and a cheap way to get into medium format photography. While it is true that Bronica cameras tend to be one of the cheapest ways to enjoy medium format, we’ll discuss if this “good enough if you can’t afford something better” attitude is warranted. Let’s talk about if the Bronica ETRSi’s 645 system is worth your time and money. (It is, with some caveats (there’s always caveats, aren’t there?))
Quick Specs
Camera: Bronica ETRSi
Production Run: Dec 1988 - Dec 2004
Type: Medium Format 120 Modular SLR
Mount: ETR
Metering: Available with AE prism finder, not used in this article
Viewfinders: Waist Level Finder, Prism, AE Prism
Standout feature: Leaf Shutter Lenses for flash sync up to 1/500 of a second
Known quirks: Scarcity of accessories & relatively low lens costs, battery dependent shutter
Additional Info:
Lenses used: 75mm f2.8 PE, 40mm f4
Viewfinder used: Waist Level Finder (no metering/aperture priority)
Backstory / Why This Camera
The Bronica ETRSi was my first medium format SLR, kind of. I had initially picked up a Mamiya RB67 kit from my local film lab but I didn’t get along the chimney finder and telephoto lens it came with. Back to the shop it went and I continued shooting with just a Mamiya 6.
A month or two later, a Bronica ETRSi showed up and it had the thing I was really looking for, a waist level finder. Sure, the big 6x7 negatives are cool, but looking DOWN INTO the camera? Now that is neat. It came with the 40mm lens and a 120 back. I scooped it up and started shooting right away. I loved it. And I hated it. I loved the experience. I hated the results from a super wide angle lens. I immediately sold it and bought the 75mm kit lens and had money to spare so I picked up some film too.
Things were great, I had a new camera I was loving, I had film to shoot it with, I was enamored with the results and then… I got the RB67 kit I actually wanted and with that, the Bronica was shelved.
Months later, my move to Seoul came up, I packed the Bronica ETRSi as it was more convenient than my Mamiya M645 kit (more on that later). I played with the Bronica every now and then… but it didn’t see the use it deserved.
A few months into living in Seoul, I started writing articles for this blog and at some point I decided, “this is a good camera. I like this camera and I want to talk about it. Let’s do a challenge of making it the every day carry. Let’s really figure out how I feel about it and go from there.” And now here we are. Let’s discuss the Bronica ETRSi, what it was like to live with as my every day camera for nearly two weeks and what you should know about it.
The Experience
Waist-level finder experience
Over time I’ve developed a complicated sentiment with the Bronica’s waist level finder and my experiences with waist level finders in general. Initially, like most who try a waist level viewfinder, I was in love with it. It was so different. So fun. So quirky. The waist level experience is a novel way to look at the world. It makes shooting the mundane feel so exciting again. You spend days or even weeks getting used to everything being inverted. There’s a learning curve and the feeling of getting better at it is exhilarating.
As someone who does street photography and close up of nature I really enjoyed using the waist level finder for my work. It was particularly useful for lower macro shots and seeing the world from an angle that isn’t just eye level. The waist level finder naturally lends itself to putting the camera lower than you would normally have it when shooting with a prism style viewfinder.
But eventually novelty wears off. You’ll start trying to use the camera as more of a tool and less of a toy. When it feels like part of your tool is more of a gimmick than a feature it starts to get frustrating. There’s no metering so you have to constantly use an external meter and the waist level finder’s window starts to feel “too small” more and more often. You’ll find yourself using it as a nipple level finder more than a waist level finder because you keep bringing it up to your eye to lock in focus.
Couple that frustration with how the magnifier in the finder popped off at one point and I was starting to just be over it. It’s easy enough to twist it back into place but it made the whole experience feel… cheap and like a toy as it fell apart mid shoot.
For shooting anything other than extremely shallow depth of field images, the waist level finder starts to get annoying. It’s at a point where if I want to shoot a waist level experience, I’d rather use the Mamiya RB67 because that’s a big enough screen to be able to hit critical focus. The ETRSi just felt like a compromise.
One could argue that if you’re trying to do serious work then you should just cut the waist level finder altogether and use a prism. There’s truth to that and I find myself considering scouring the internet for a prism finder soon. Without it, portrait orientation images are basically out of the question and it’s a format I like a lot but can’t feasibly do right now.
I do still love the experience. I think it’s fun. I love showing other people the inverted world you see through the waist level finder. It’s a refreshing change of pace when I tire of my traditional cameras. But I feel like it’s flawed with such a small screen and 6x6 or 6x7 are better suited to the experience if you’re intending to do more serious work with your camera.
Lens Rendering and Handling
The kit lens for the Bronica ETR system is a 75mm f2.8 as opposed to the Mamiya 645’s 80mm f2.8. In practice they both operate more or less the same and I think if there are photographers who prefer one over the other they’re just splitting hairs. I’ve found the 75mm to produce beautiful images with incredible sharpness. It probably helps that I have the PE version, which is the final and best version of the 75mm.
Color rendition is true to life with nice saturation and contrast even when using experimental film stocks. Black and white images come out clean without any issue. In both types of photography the lens performs as well as you could hope while maintaining vintage character and never straying too close to clinical perfection that modern lenses have. Blooming and flaring is under control but can be caused with intentionality to add to your images when you’d like to utilize them as artistic tools.
The Zenza Bronica 75mm f2.8 is the kind of lens that’s hard to find fault with, in all honesty. At every point when using it, I felt that the lens stayed out of my way and allowed me to create the way I wanted to create. It was never a situation where I thought to myself “ah that’s just how shooting old gear is”. Being someone who prefers to shoot 45-50mm lenses the 75mm slots in perfectly with the rest of my gear and produces shots that are consistent with my style and what I expect.
Aside from the 75mm f2.8 I also briefly owned the 40mm f4 because it came with the Bronica as the lens attached to it when I purchased the camera. I ended up selling it as I dislike wide angle lenses and used the proceeds to buy the 75mm instead.
The 40mm performed well enough. A lens with that wide of a field of view and only f4 will struggle to give you a well-defined medium format look. The lens was small and easy to handle and if I had to point out any flaws, it would be that I noticed pretty severe vignettes and distortion on some shots with it. I wonder if my impressions of it would have been better with a higher quality film.
Anyway, flaws aside, I’ve considered repurchasing it as my Fujifilm Tiara has taught me to accept wider photography… though, if I’m going to buy lenses for the ETR system there are other lenses I’d prioritize like the 105 macro with true 1:1 or the 150mm since they suit me more.
Last point to quickly touch on: Bronica ETR lenses will weigh more than Mamiya 645 lenses in general. Due to being leaf shutter lenses there’s more going on in the lens beyond glass. It’s a difference that’s noticeable if you look for it but on their camera bodies you won’t notice it as they end up weighing around the same.
System Handling and Portability Over Time
Initially, I loved handling the Bronica ETRSi. It’s no exaggeration to say that I was happy to use the camera in any scenario even if I was using a lens that I otherwise would have refused to ever use. The novel experience of using the waist level finder and a medium format SLR system enamored me in a way I hadn’t felt since I first started shooting photography with a proper DSLR.
The ETRSi is light and portable enough that I felt happy to use it as a street camera. Never did I feel that it got in the way and looking at the world with a new perspective was a treat every time I used it.
Unfortunately, eventually I was a pulled away by a new camera to play with. The RB67 was in the picture and the Bronica was put away pretty much indefinitely. Compared to the RB67, the Bronica felt like a toy and I had outgrown it. Not only that but I thought that there were no quirks to it to bring me back for an experience unique to the ETRSI.
Truthfully, both cameras are uncomfortable to use for run and gun photography but the RB67 rewards it with more impressive negatives and a more pronounced “medium format look” to the images. Despite the ETRSi being easier to handle, it wasn’t by enough of a different make the Bronica feel like a worthy proposition for shooting. It was in this situation where if I was going to be taking a medium format camera out, I’d rather go all the way with the RB67 and if I wanted something smaller for more inconspicuous photos I’d rather use a 135 camera or even the Mamiya 6 as they were smaller or quieter with the Mamiya 6 having bigger negatives.
It wasn’t until I challenged myself with an ETRSi-only week that I found the true strength of the camera. Something it could do that my other cameras simply couldn’t. The leaf shutter let it perform exceptionally in low light photography.
When I started testing some other cameras immediately after the challenge, I noticed something was off. When I was doing blue hour and late evening photography, I wasn’t feeling the confidence in my shots that the Bronica gave me. I tried for a week. I couldn’t figure it out. I started bringing my Bronica alongside the Mamiya 645s I was testing.
Slowly but surely I realized it. The Bronica felt smoother. It felt more stable. Every shutter actuation felt “just right”. When the shot would fire, the camera didn’t shake or vibrate in a way where I felt it could cause my shot to blur from camera shake. The leaf shutter mechanism being in the lens was making shooting as easy as could be.
I had taken for granted the fact that the Bronica didn’t get in the way and didn’t have any quirks I needed to figure out or deal with. The ETRSi was a tool that did its job better than I could have asked and I had to shoot other cameras side-by-side to realize it.
The handling of the Bronica is so splendid that it makes you think it’s a boring camera to use. With a new appreciation for this camera, I’ve been wanting to get a prism viewfinder to use the camera more “seriously” and to unlock it further with aperture priority mode and the ability to take portraits. I want my ETRSi to be more than just a waist level finder experience for when I’m creatively burnt out as I think it has the potential to be a tool that can do it all.
One nice to have I wish the camera had is a cold shoe somewhere on the body. I know you get a hot shoe with the prism finders and that’s great but I would really like somewhere to mount a light meter on the camera. There’s lot of really smart features on the camera and it feels that a lot of careful design went into what’s on and not on the ETRSi but I can’t help but feel a cold meter should have been possible… even if as an accessory.
Film Back and Film Loading
This is a shorter section as there’s only so much you can say but I found the film loading on the ETR to be a bit clunky. Anyone who has experience with loading a medium format camera surely already knows the general idea of how to do it as it’s not rocket science.
One peculiarity of the backs are that the slides only go in one way as marked by a small dot on the slide itself. I… don’t know why it’s like this but it’s just kind of annoying when you’re in a rush.
When you want to remove the take up spools and completed film from the film back, you do it by grabbing them and pushing down to cause the part of the back holding it in place to swing open. It sounds easy enough, right? I’ve found on my back that it can often get stuck which is really frustrating when you have a finished roll you want to seal so it doesn’t get leaks and you’re stuck trying to delicately handle the roll to try and get it out.
For the longest time I thought it was just a skill issue, honestly. Funny enough though, I finally saw my first Bronica ETR shooter shortly before starting this article and he had the exact same issues with the film back. He was definitely new to using the camera. But he couldn’t intuitively figure out how to get the back to open to remove his finished roll, he couldn’t pop the roll out of the film back’s holder and he just seemed stressed the whole time because (for some reason) he used Provia as his first roll through the camera and he didn’t want to waste such expensive film. Even the workers at the camera shop who handle other medium format cameras were scratching their head when trying to help him.
Maybe that anecdote is neither here nor there and any medium format specialist could have done it easily. I just think that something like a key camera operation should not have been that… cumbersome.
Anyway, lastly I want to say that getting backs for this camera can be kind of a pain. We’ve lightly touched on scarcity when it comes to the ETR system and that plays into the film backs. They can pop up from time to time and you can get them for cheap but they’re also not as readily available as they are for other systems. Vendors are starting to recognize this and raise price accordingly. I’m not someone who uses multiple backs so this hasn’t effected me but if I ever need to replace my film back… well I’m not looking forward to that.
The Bronica ETRSi’s Pros and Cons
Pros
With its smaller footprint and light weight, the camera can be an every day camera and is as stealthy as a medium format SLR can be when shooting street photography
Optics are beautifully sharp even with the lesser early versions of lenses
The leaf shutter:
Shooting at shutter speeds as low as 1/30 of a second felt easy compared to other SLRs due to the reduced vibration from the leaf shutter
For flash or strobe photographers the leaf shutters are a god send due to flash sync being available at all speeds
For street photography the leaf shutter helps make the camera quieter so combined with the smaller size, you’re able to blend in and shoot more inconspicuously
Being fully modular means “repairs” are easier as you can just replace/repair the broken part while keeping the rest of the camera
135 film backs allow you to use 35mm film for panoramic photography and this mod allows you to turn the cheaper 135N film back into a panoramic back at a fraction of the price
With the camera being produced into the 2000’s, the ETRSi is a fairly modern body
Cons
Having f2.8 as the fastest shutter speed on any lens made low light shooting feel more difficult due to lack of light from f2.8
Scarcity of accessories is a huge pain if you want specific parts for your kit. Extra film backs cost more on average than Mamiya’s and specialized film backs for 135 film are eye-watering in cost
Lenses are cheap but because the Bronica system was not as widely adopted, it can be harder to find those lenses
The camera is battery powered. When the battery dies, most of the camera’s functionality does too due to the electronics controlling the shutter speeds in the leaf shutter
The 645 format doesn’t lend to a sustainable waist level finder only experience; you’ll want to consider a prism finder as you start to use the camera more
No cold shoe, you can only get a hot shoe with the prism meters
Lightweight is due to the largely plastic build
Alternatives
Mamiya 645 Lines
These are probably the most direct competitors to the Bronica ETRSi. Whether you want the mechanical and classic M645 or the more modern 645 Super/Pro, both systems are modular SLR’s with nice glass and viewfinder options.
Honestly speaking, if you were shopping for the Bronica vs the Mamiya and you weren’t set on either on yet, I believe you’d be happy with either camera assuming you don’t need any specific features.
The real differentiators between the systems are more on a technical level. If you intend to use the cameras in a studio environment where you’ll have strobes, the Bronica’s leaf shutter lenses win here. Being able to max out your shutter speed and maintaining sync with your flash is a strength unique to the Bronica ETRSi vs the Mamiya 645 line (and Pentax line, I believe).
If you need a higher shutter speed than 1/500th because you like to shoot wide open, outdoors in bright light, if Cinestill 800T/Portra 400/Portra 800 is your favourite film stock or whatever other reason you might need higher shutter speeds, the Mamiya M645 1000s and newer Mamiya 645 Super lines can do that. Truthfully, I don’t know what scenario would come up where 1/1000 of a second is that big of a difference vs 1/500th of a second beyond maybe slide film… so I personally don’t see this a make or break.
If there were to be a “make or break” it would be the lens line up. The Mamiya 645 system is home to the legendary Mamiya 80mm f1.9. Being used in professional cinema, adapted to modern digital and digital medium format, this is a legendary optic and may be the brightest medium format lens ever made. If you have this lens for use with digital or were considering it then it makes sense to also invest in the Mamiya 645 system. Also worth considering is that the Mamiya 645 lenses are easier to adapt to other systems because they’re simple lenses compared to the leaf shutters of the Bronica ETR system. So if adapting lenses matters to you or if you were looking at the 80mm f1.9 then based on that the Mamiya 645 system is a better fit for you.
The Pentax 645 system:
I haven’t shot it but it has autofocus options and modern nice to haves. From what I understand Pentax was late to the 645 party so when they made their cameras, they had the benefit of being able to include newer and more modern features to their cameras.
Additionally, the lenses for the Pentax system are also supposedly easier to adapt to a modern digital workflow.
If you want something more modern both feature-wise and from a handling perspective, the Pentax 645 system takes lovely pictures. I haven’t handled it so I can’t speak beyond what I’ve seen and heard of it though.
Fujifilm’s Medium Format Point and Shoots
Another line of cameras I’ve yet to try and have only seen and briefly handled. Fujifilm in the 80s and 90s made medium format 645 point and shoot cameras to make medium format more portable and accessible. The optics on these cameras render beautiful photos but I’ve heard and read plenty of times online that they’re extremely fragile and a pain to repair if they can be repaired at all. They’ve also exploded in price in recent years and for the cost of one of these cameras you can get into the Bronica ETRSi system… twice. Additionally, being that they’re point and shoots, they don’t operate in the same way as the modular SLR system of the Bronica ETR line. This is effectively an entirely different category but it does shoot 645 and for some who don’t need or care about the interchangeable lenses, modularity, or want autofocus this line of cameras would suit them better.
Verdict / Final Thoughts
The Zenza Bronica ETRSi is a lovely camera system. If it’s the only medium format camera you use, you’d never know what you’re missing because this camera just feels like such a complete package. Handling is smooth and the camera stays out of your way while you create. It’s light, portable, works great with flash and out in the field.
It’s almost too perfect. For anyone who wants a camera with quirks, personality and a camera that makes you work a little more, this camera doesn’t really offer that friction. But if you want an easy entry to medium format photography that can help you build confidence in shooting a new film format the ETRSi makes sense. It just works. The lenses are great, the handling makes sense once you actually use it and learn where everything is and what the buttons and knobs do and you don’t get stuck with things that you don’t need. It’s true that these cameras aren’t best in class at anything but they do everything very, very well.
I think these cameras are more than just a Hasselblad alternative. Yes, the Hasselblads have prestige that the Bronicas don't. Hasselblads can also be repaired more easily today. But the Bronica ETRSi offers immense value to photographers looking for a portable tool that they can bring out to a shoot, trip or paid job and get it done without issue or worry about damaging due to cost. Whether as a part of a kit of cameras or as your only camera the Zenza Bronica ETRSi should be considered.
