RF645 people...look at the auction site. Now.

#13. Bought mine after they announced they would be discontinued and haven't looked back. I don't know how many where made. Mines 1001128 , the first 1 means it has the 100mm lens frame lines.
It is a very good system. Too bad they stopped production.
 
I'm in! My RF645s are shooters, not collectibles.

Every now and then I still break out my trusty ETRS, but mostly I use the RF645s whenever I'm shooting film. The rare cases where the SLR makes sense are long telephoto shots, or when I need an extra stop of speed (Bronica made f/2.8 lenses in 50, 60, and 75mm for the ETRS).
 
Frank, hitmanh, and Chris -- Do your RF645's have their original 135mm framelines or have they been converted to 100mm?

When you take off the lens, the viewfinder shows its smallest framelines... If the distance within the frames horizontally is about 5 focus patches wide, that's the 100mm framelines. If there's only room for about 3 focus patches horizontally, that's the 135mm frame.
 
From the looks of it I think mine has the 100mm framelines.

Wasn't Tamron USA doing the conversions for free?

Chris
 
Doug said:
Frank, hitmanh, and Chris -- Do your RF645's have their original 135mm framelines or have they been converted to 100mm?

When you take off the lens, the viewfinder shows its smallest framelines... If the distance within the frames horizontally is about 5 focus patches wide, that's the 100mm framelines. If there's only room for about 3 focus patches horizontally, that's the 135mm frame.
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I have the original 135mm framelines...

Matt
 
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ChrisPlatt said:
From the looks of it I think mine has the 100mm framelines.
Wasn't Tamron USA doing the conversions for free?
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Yes, I think so, and a recall of the 135mm lenses too... but this was "before my time".
 
hitmanh said:
What is the problem with the 135mm lenses?
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Hi Matt -- Theoretically there is no problem, but in practice... Consider a critical situation, close-focus distance, wide-open aperture, thus very little depth of field. The Bronica's RF baseline is short, but just adequate to the task... except if manufacturing tolerances in both body and lens happen to "stack up", both erring to the maximum in the same direction. Then unhappy customers have focus errors.

Not all lens/body combinations had a problem, only a minority I think, and not all that many customers bought the 135 lens anyway. But enough that Bronica saw they had to take corrective action. Very expensive corrective action! They designed and produced a new 100mm lens, recalled the 135's, and changed the customer's framelines to match. The new 100mm lens is lovely, yet its close-focus markings are un-numbered, with warnings to be careful focusing in tha closest range region indicated on the lens. I think Bronica was doing a bit of CYA there... :)

Of course there was also a cheaper solution, one offered by Robert White Ltd, the UK importer. They sent the body and 135mm lens to the service shop to be matched to each other. Of course the limitation of that was that indeed it became a matched pair and should always remain together later in the used market.

I expect the 100mm lens was made in only one production run of limited quantity, while most of the 135's were returned to Bronica, leaving both lenses more or less rare... and pricy. I'd like to have a 135, which I'd then send off to have matched with my body, but I'm not willing to pay crazy prices! I do think the 100mm is more useful than I imagine the 135 to be, so my 135 desire is a feeble little blip of GAS. :)

I'll be soon receiving a used 645 format SLR, for which I already have 105 and 135mm lenses that will fit with an adapter, so this might give me a feel for the relative usefulness of the Bronica's long lenses too.
 
Doug said:
I expect the 100mm lens was made in only one production run of limited quantity, while most of the 135's were returned to Bronica, leaving both lenses more or less rare... and pricy. I'd like to have a 135, which I'd then send off to have matched with my body, but I'm not willing to pay crazy prices! I do think the 100mm is more useful than I imagine the 135 to be, so my 135 desire is a feeble little blip of GAS. :)
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Judging by recent ebay trends, the lenses aren't that pricey, just hard to come by. Hope for us all.


Stephan
 
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