hitmanh said:
What is the problem with the 135mm lenses?
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.
