About Pentacon six medium format cameras
Answering to people on flickr saying that Pentacon six cameras are Junk
I think most people here are just pointing at the difference between focal plane shutters and leaf shutters camera systems. The first (pentacon six, pentax 67 etc) are more complex cameras, with more parts prone to fail, and they are vibrating when shutting. The seconds (bronica sq, mamiya rb67, hasselblad 500c etc) are much more simple camera (a box with a mirror), where most of the "technology" is delegated to the lenses. On a leaf shutter camera system, the thing is most prone to fail is the lens leaf shutter, not the camera itself. It vibrates less, cause the area that the shutter covers it's just the back of the lens, not the entire film. So, I guess, with focal plane shutters camera the things to service first will be the camera bodies, with leaf shutter systems, all the lenses. Personally , I prefer focal plane shutter systems, in medium and large format (graflex rb, mentor, butcher popular pressman etc), since I love exotic fast lenses, old brass lenses, projection lenses, and the biometars, flektogon, vega, volna, mir, sonnars on medium format, and pentac, aero-ektarsn petzval, cooke, dallymeyers etc on large format. I read all the focal plane shutter cameras, tends to share same kind of problems : shutter becoming inaccurate , mirror getting sticky, electronics (when present) stop working, frames overlapping, curtains deteriorates. Most of these problems can be easily being solved with a cla, sometimes, with time, also springs will loose their tension, and that's harder to solve, I guess. I have pentacon six tl, kiev 6c , obviously if I could adapt the lenses to others at least 6x6 systems I could like to get a more recent body, but so far I only found adapters to mamiya-pentax-contax 645 . So far, I haven't had any major problem with either the pentacon six or the kiev, even if the kiev is more prone to overlap frames, if isn't payed some care when loading the film, and well, more shacky when shutting. At some of the times the pentacon and the kiev were a bit slow, but it was just due some dirt in the curtains rails, fairly easy to clean with some lighter fluid and some shutter excercise. The kiev light traps were also deteriorated, but i replaced them with some foam. If you want something newer, that shares the same lens system, I think an exakta 66 could be an option, or one of those rebuilt arax-kiev cameras
I think most people here are just pointing at the difference between focal plane shutters and leaf shutters camera systems. The first (pentacon six, pentax 67 etc) are more complex cameras, with more parts prone to fail, and they are vibrating when shutting. The seconds (bronica sq, mamiya rb67, hasselblad 500c etc) are much more simple camera (a box with a mirror), where most of the "technology" is delegated to the lenses. On a leaf shutter camera system, the thing is most prone to fail is the lens leaf shutter, not the camera itself. It vibrates less, cause the area that the shutter covers it's just the back of the lens, not the entire film. So, I guess, with focal plane shutters camera the things to service first will be the camera bodies, with leaf shutter systems, all the lenses. Personally , I prefer focal plane shutter systems, in medium and large format (graflex rb, mentor, butcher popular pressman etc), since I love exotic fast lenses, old brass lenses, projection lenses, and the biometars, flektogon, vega, volna, mir, sonnars on medium format, and pentac, aero-ektarsn petzval, cooke, dallymeyers etc on large format. I read all the focal plane shutter cameras, tends to share same kind of problems : shutter becoming inaccurate , mirror getting sticky, electronics (when present) stop working, frames overlapping, curtains deteriorates. Most of these problems can be easily being solved with a cla, sometimes, with time, also springs will loose their tension, and that's harder to solve, I guess. I have pentacon six tl, kiev 6c , obviously if I could adapt the lenses to others at least 6x6 systems I could like to get a more recent body, but so far I only found adapters to mamiya-pentax-contax 645 . So far, I haven't had any major problem with either the pentacon six or the kiev, even if the kiev is more prone to overlap frames, if isn't payed some care when loading the film, and well, more shacky when shutting. At some of the times the pentacon and the kiev were a bit slow, but it was just due some dirt in the curtains rails, fairly easy to clean with some lighter fluid and some shutter excercise. The kiev light traps were also deteriorated, but i replaced them with some foam. If you want something newer, that shares the same lens system, I think an exakta 66 could be an option, or one of those rebuilt arax-kiev cameras
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