Bronica EC

Zenza Bronica built the EC in 1972 to answer a problem its own earlier cameras had created. The S2 and the bodies before it ran a focal-plane shutter that hammered, and the mirror dropped all at once in one violent motion. The EC split the mirror into two pieces that fold out of the way and added electronics to tame the shutter, and the result is a 6x6 SLR that feels far more civilized than what came before it. This was Bronica going after Hasselblad on price without giving up through-the-lens reflex viewing.

The viewfinder is the usual waist-level affair, a big bright ground glass you look down into with the image flipped left to right. New shooters fight that flip until the hands learn to compensate, and then it stops mattering. You can swap the finder for a prism if you want the image right way round at eye level. Focus runs through a removable helical mount that sits in front of the body and drives the lens, a hallmark of the focal-plane Bronicas. The helical is its own front-mounted unit, not built into the lens, and on a clean sample it turns smooth and heavy in a way that suits careful work. Film loads into removable backs, so you can change from one emulsion to another mid-roll by swapping the whole magazine.

The shutter is focal-plane and electronically controlled, running from about 8 seconds down to roughly 1/1000, and it needs a battery to time the slow and electronic speeds. Flash sync is the catch. It tops out at 1/40, so this is not a daylight-fill body the way a leaf-shutter Hasselblad is. You feel the mechanism work when you fire it, a deeper thunk than a leaf shutter, firmer than you expect from a camera this composed.

There is no built-in meter on the EC itself, and that is the honest weakness for a modern shooter who wants a number in the finder. You meter separately and transfer the reading. An incident or spot reading from the Zone Light Meter app covers it cleanly: place your shadows on the zone you want, then set aperture and the body's shutter dial from that. The EC never carried a meter, so the app stands in for the one it was built without.

People who want medium-format negatives and Hasselblad-style modularity, minus the Hasselblad price, are the ones who keep these alive. Studio portrait shooters like the interchangeable backs and the square frame that crops cleanly either direction. The trade is reliability. These are electronic bodies from the early seventies, and the electronics are the first thing to fail. A dead capacitor or a corroded battery contact can sideline one, and a proper CLA on a working sample is worth paying for.

Cross-shop it against a Hasselblad 500 series or a Bronica SQ, and the EC usually wins on price and loses on resale confidence. Buy one tested, with a back that seats tight and seals that are not gummy, and you have a serious 6x6 system for the cost of a decent 35mm kit. Go in knowing the battery and the electronics are part of the bargain, and it rewards the gamble.