In my defence, I really didn’t mean to buy another camera. I know, it’s a story you’ve all heard before – but I’d only wandered past the camera shop by chance while exploring a new city. The Bronica ETRS was nestling behind a pair of Nikon F4s, which made the ETRS look almost compact by comparison. This was back in 2010, when folk were queuing up to rid themselves of film equipment in favour of digital, and the price was sufficiently attractive to force me in off the street to have a look at it. I’d had the use of one years earlier, but the price when new was way out of my reach.
Liberated from the display window, the ETRS proved to be in excellent condition, with the ‘low mileage’ appearance of having had a caring owner. It came with a set of three lenses and a choice of viewfinders, including the AE-II TTL metering head. Reader, I bought it, along with a pocketful of Ilford FP4. Thus began a journey of getting to know and enjoy one of the more interesting 120 film systems, a journey which continues today.
The ETRS system
The Bronica
