Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: jsch on December 03, 2009, 07:03:11 am

Title: Question for Mamiya RZ Experts
Post by: jsch on December 03, 2009, 07:03:11 am

Hi,

I recently got an Mamiya RZ, a left-over in an old studio. I never used one before (I was a Hasselblad-V guy). Now I play around with it and ran into a problem. I understand that there are two lights in the viewfinder. The red one is clear to me. Now the question: Even after winding up the orange light in the viewfinder shows up when I press the shutter release button and nothing else happens. Only the mechanic exposure time 1/400 is working in the special position of the switch around the shutter release button. If I switch it into the "ON" position only the orange light goes up - no shutter release. Do I have to put in a film to be able to get the other times ... 1/30, 1/60, ...? Or might there be another problem?

Thanks for help,
Johannes

Title: Question for Mamiya RZ Experts
Post by: billthecat on December 03, 2009, 07:51:20 am

I'm not an expert but the first thing I did with my RZ67 was to put a new battery in. Did you check the battery?

Bill

Title: Question for Mamiya RZ Experts
Post by: dergiman on December 03, 2009, 10:23:54 am

dark slide removed? the mamiya RZ detects wether a film is in the filmback or not, if not the shutter won´t fire! so please put a film in and try again!

Title: Question for Mamiya RZ Experts
Post by: pschefz on December 03, 2009, 11:33:11 am

that is either the little battery on the bottom or a contact problem with the film back/darkslide....

Title: Question for Mamiya RZ Experts
Post by: Frank Doorhof on December 03, 2009, 02:14:00 pm

For a digital back set the three way switch to the back position, for film the center position.
Maybe that's the problem ?

Otherwise remove the lens and check the aperture.

Title: Question for Mamiya RZ Experts
Post by: Lightbox on December 03, 2009, 03:19:16 pm

You can take the film back off and set the three-way switch to the "M" position to fire and test the shutter operation at all speeds, also make sure the shutter on the lens is loaded before you mount it to the RZ.

Also, sorry for going off topic a bit here, I'm fairly new to the RZ67 too, does setting the ISO dial on the film backs have any other purpose than to remind you what ISO film you have loaded? I realise it would be used for the basis of exposure when a metered prism is attached, but I only use the WLF, so I have just assumed it doesn't have any relevance to my shooting.

Title: Question for Mamiya RZ Experts
Post by: UlfKrentz on December 03, 2009, 04:06:18 pm

Quote from: John-S

That's great. Never knew that. It does work, just tried it.

That switch position was intended for double or multi-exposures without moving the film between the shots. It is the recommended position for use with digital backs.

Cheers, Ulf