Newbie with a Mamiya C33 - parallax inaccurate?

Hello all. First post, so I'll introduce myself. I am not a photographer by any means, but I have a fondness for vintage cameras that I share with my wife. A year or so ago we picked up a Polaroid 250 Land Camera at a yard sale. After a cleanup and working up a battery pack from AAA's we ordered some Fuji FP-100c and fell in love with it, but at the time film was $10 on Amazon. Obviously not the case now, so the camera has been retired.

Recently I was given a Mamiya C33 medium format camera with the 80mm and 180mm lenses. It needed some TLC but we got it working, so we ran a roll of film through it to see if there were any leaks or other issues. To our surprise it works just fine, so now we have a new medium format camera We'll be attempting to process our own negatives soon.

While a lot of our shots turned out okay (once we purchased a light meter), it is apparent that I am either not using the parallax indicator correctly or it is not functioning as it should. I have the dial set to 80mm, but even at full bellows extension it only indicates that the top centimeter or so will be cropped. Obviously for very close up shots this is not the case:



I realize now that I am not taking into account for the exposure adjustment, so I can fix that - but am I not adjusting for parallax correctly or is the indicator not working correctly? Based on my photos it would seem a lot more was cropped than was indicated when I am right up on an object. Being more than a foot or so away seems fine:



Any tips?

I pulled out my 330f, with the parallax dial set for the 80mm lens, at full bellows, the needle is pretty close to the bottom of the frame. About half way between the 2.5 and 3.0 indicators on the focusing screen. It sounds like that aspect of your camera might not be working correctly. 1cm from the top of the frame sounds like the 180mm setting.

mrosenlof said:

I pulled out my 330f, with the parallax dial set for the 80mm lens, at full bellows, the needle is pretty close to the bottom of the frame. About half way between the 2.5 and 3.0 indicators on the focusing screen. It sounds like that aspect of your camera might not be working correctly. 1cm from the top of the frame sounds like the 180mm setting.

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Thanks! IIRC I think mine is the opposite of that - set to 180mm the needle is close to the bottom at full bellows. Either I was misreading mine and had it set wrong, or my dial is wrong, lol. I'll check it when I get home and report back.

Welcome to APUG.

In case you haven't already found it, Mike Butkus has the manual for your camera on his site. I always recommend that you send him his recommended donation: http://www.butkus.org/chinon/mamiya/mamiya_c33/mamiya_c33.htm

Unless you are reading the lens setting wrong, that does sound like it is malfunctioning.

Welcome to APUG

If you are going to do close up photography with the C33 then buy a tripod and a Paramender.

MattKing said:

Welcome to APUG.

In case you haven't already found it, Mike Butkus has the manual for your camera on his site. I always recommend that you send him his recommended donation: http://www.butkus.org/chinon/mamiya/mamiya_c33/mamiya_c33.htm

Unless you are reading the lens setting wrong, that does sound like it is malfunctioning.

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Thanks, I have seen that site and have donated previously. A fantastic resource!

What I REALLY need is the repair manual. The indicator is indeed stuck. It occasionally works, but is most likely innacurate when it does.

Yes a tripod and paramender would be great, perhaps one day I will pick one up. I am just a hobbiest though, playing with my toy.

Here is a link (also on Butkus) for the repair manual for the C220. Different camera, I know, but I have used it to repair a couple of C330's, and a C220. I may have a pdf of the C330 repair manual, but I'll have to check this evening. I think for the parallax, you'll be going on the left side of the camera (as you're looking through the VF).

It's easy to compensate for parallax if you use a tripod, just raise the camera by the difference between the lenses.
The paramender does exactly the same thing but it just lifts the camera by that difference.
I think Minolta made one for their tlr's too.

Thanks for the help. Apparently the c220 does not have this part, but I was able to figure it out once I hade the side panel removed. I am a little concerned about the small brass ring that fell out and doesnt appear to have a home...

Regardless it appears the part in question was bent out of shape. Straightened it out and it appears to work fine now. In spite of the mystery piece everything else functions as normal as well. Who knows. I'm sure it will bite me in the end eventually.

ThatJoshGuy said:

Hello all. First post, so I'll introduce myself. I am not a photographer by any means, but I have a fondness for vintage cameras that I share with my wife. A year or so ago we picked up a Polaroid 250 Land Camera at a yard sale. After a cleanup and working up a battery pack from AAA's we ordered some Fuji FP-100c and fell in love with it, but at the time film was $10 on Amazon. Obviously not the case now, so the camera has been retired.

Recently I was given a Mamiya C33 medium format camera with the 80mm and 180mm lenses. It needed some TLC but we got it working, so we ran a roll of film through it to see if there were any leaks or other issues. To our surprise it works just fine, so now we have a new medium format camera We'll be attempting to process our own negatives soon.

While a lot of our shots turned out okay (once we purchased a light meter), it is apparent that I am either not using the parallax indicator correctly or it is not functioning as it should.

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FYI - this can be useful:

There are two different 180mm lenses: The "Super" version and the older, regular version. They have different flange-to-film distance.
The C33 is contemporary to the older version, so the parallax indicator will indicate correctly only on that version, not on the "Super" version.

PS: I just read you solved the issue!!

ThatJoshGuy said:

Regardless it appears the part in question was bent out of shape. Straightened it out and it appears to work fine now.

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Ouch. I bent mine while doing a little dusting and could never get it just right until it went in for another repair issue and the guy fixed it too. Really dumb thing to do. Good on you for fixing it yourself.

pbromaghin said:

Ouch. I bent mine while doing a little dusting and could never get it just right until it went in for another repair issue and the guy fixed it too. Really dumb thing to do. Good on you for fixing it yourself.

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Hopefully it doesn't get bent out of shape again. During reassembly I realized I broke the knob for locking/unlocking the lens It is currently in the locked position so I can shoot with it, but if I can't fix it I'll just need to remember I can't switch lenses mid-roll. Anyone know if it is possible to get a replacement for the knob and screw that holds it on? lol Would probably need to find a broken camera for parts. I could reattach it with some JB Weld and get it working again, but then I'd never get it off again.

One of the reasons why I ged rid of Mamiya TLR was because parallax correction on closeup distances was next to useless.