My new Bronica ETR 150mm f/3.5 lens

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

Just thought I'd share my most recent eBay purchase. I bought it a couple of days before Christmas and it arrived today. This 150 is the "MC" version, which I don't believe is the latest one. But I really don't care. It is in amazingly good shape. If you look closely in the first photo, you can spot a couple of blemishes on the barrel that are the only marks on the lens. Otherwise it is in "as new" condition.

I wasn't going to go for any of the 'buy it now' offerings because they were all way too expensive. Decided to be patient instead. I found this lens placed in an uncommon category -- it was in a vintage collectibles category, and had received only one bid before mine. The other bidder was a bottom feeder -- his maximum was only a few dollars above the opening bid, so I got the lens for $63US. This shows you once again the benefits of searching for an item on eBay's home page because you just never can tell where some people will put their item for sale, and if it's stuck off in an oddball category, it's likely not to get any bids.

This 150mm lens for the ETR-series Bronicas is quite compact. With the lens set to infinity, it measures only about 70mm from the edge of the front element to the edge of the rear element. So it's a true telephoto design and not just a 'long focus' design. And at f/3.5 maximum aperture, images are bright enough and there is a shallow enough depth of field where they sort of 'pop' into focus.

According to my rough calculations a 150mm is about the same as a 100mm lens in 35mm format, so this should make just about an ideal portrait lens as well. Gotta give it a go at this as well.

Some friends and I are planning to get together to go on a "film crawl" either this coming Saturday or Sunday at a location yet to be decided in or around Houston, and I'll be packing my new Bronica 150 for the occasion. I plan to shoot some B&W and some Velvia with it so by the end of the weekend I hope to have some B&W at least taken with this lens that I can share here at the forum.

Now I just need a couple of more items to have a nicely equipped ETRSi outfit -- a wide angle lens (I'd like to get a 40mm, but will probably get a 50mm because of the huge price difference), and a Metz flash with the SCA 386 module and cord -- probably a 45 CT-1 or some such, although because I have a hot shoe on my Grip E, if I can find a shoe-mount flash that supports SCA 386, I'd prefer to go that way. Oh, well, one of these days it would be really nice to get a long telephoto, but there are no immediate plans for such.

LucisPictor · Expire: 2013-12-03

Nice! Have fun with it.

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

That lens is supposed to be razor sharp, also you have the better F3.5 version......for that price I would buy it even though it would conflict with my 180mm lens for my RB67.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Looks like the film crawl is set for Saturday and we're heading for Galveston, which is an island on the Gulf Coast. There's plenty of 19th century architecture in Galveston, plus there's the coast itself and its scenic possibilities. Should be a hoot. I've got a few rolls of Tri-X Pro and some Velvia 220 I bought from Rawhead here at the forum. I'll be running these flavors through the ETRSi, giving the 150 especially a workout.