A few months ago I did a post featuring the Bronica S2A. When those early 6×6 Bronicas first came out, there wasn’t anything else like them. And that included the lenses, too. If you’ve been looking to pick up a new lens or two for your Bronica S-series or EC-series cameras, you may have noticed some marked Nikkor, some marked Zenzanon and some marked Komura. So, today, we’re gonna try to clear up any confusion surrounding these lenses. Stick around!
If you missed the episode on the Bronica S2A, I recommend you check it out. But I’m going to review some of the highlights for you here. The original 6×6 format Bronica cameras weren’t anything like what the company would produce later, beginning with the ETR. Their later cameras were all based on leaf-shutter systems – meaning that the shutters were incorporated into each lens. The early Bronicas – from the original Deluxe model, the S and C-series, to the EC-series all featured focal plane shutters, along with another unique feature of having the focusing helicoid as part of the camera body – not the lens – like on just about every other SLR camera ever.
This meant that the lenses for these cameras were really quite simple – basically just a block of lens elements and an aperture control. SHOW. And since the mirror slid down under the lens during exposure instead of flipping up, it meant these lenses could mount deep in the body close to the film plane. Theoretically, it meant that the lenses could be smaller than their competitors. If you compare the standard 75mm lens to the standard 85mm lens of the Kowa, for instance, it’s easy to see the size difference. And of course, a smaller lens meant less weight.
Now the Bronica camera bodies made up for that weight difference, but that’s another story altogether.
But there were other ways to mount lenses on the Bronica, too. The focusing helicoid on the original Z, D and S was built-in to the camera body. But starting with the S2, that helicoid was separate and removable. This meant that long telephotos could be used that came with their own focusing helicoid. You would just need to remove the one from the body, and that would reveal a larger bayonet mount. And if that wasn’t enough, the inside edge of the removable helicoid has a 57mm screw thread that the extension tube set for these cameras used. Also, if you were clever enough, you could mount whatever lens you wanted, as long as it fit the 57mm thread.
But, if you’ve been thinking about picking up one of these old Bronicas and are a bit confused about the lenses, well, hopefully the following video will help straighten it out.
Vintage Camera Digest 