Shameless plug: I have made a website that lists a lot of 3D printable film cameras (including the links to the print files). Feel free to have a look if you are thinking about printing your own camera. Some are really cheap and easy to print.
I'm looking forward to the day someone figures out how to modify a full frame shutter assembly (plenty and cheap on ebay) to work with medium format film.
To get a sense for what is required to have a focal-plane shutter on a medium format camera look at the Pentax 67. It's huge and heavy. Even with the mirror locked up there is a significant amount of inertia from the shutter transferred to the user requiring the use of a tripod in many settings.
Medium format focal plane shutters do exist, copal made them for Mamiya/Phase One for their AF, AFD, DF, DF+, and XF cameras. Some of which work for medium format film.
https://japanhobbytool.com/collections/camera-repair-materia...
I’m also a sucker for 35mm in medium format so you can see photo content around the glorious sprocket holes.
Have you seen Ted Orland's holga photos? https://www.anseladams.com/products/tree-in-snowstorm-yosemi... and https://www.anseladams.com/products/dawn-at-mono-lake-in-win...
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I personally like 4x6 (a 5x7 is a bit more awkward and 8x10 is right out). One of my favorite things was when Polaroid peel apart film was available - I'd do a transfer to a watercolor post card in the field and put a stamp on it and send it. One of a kind photograph - while you could take another photograph there, you could never make the same print of it since it was a destructive process.
(Also neat being in the field and letting a young child do it from being under the hood to pulling out the film and transferring it to a post card or having the print as it is properly developed)
you likely know this already, but just in case - or for anyone reading this and getting ideas - fading over time due to sun exposure will be a real issue, so make sure to have scans of your favorite images…
For context, the camera I got is a Mamiya RZ67. It's obviously also not straightforward to repair, and it's a beast in size, but I love that it's a fraction of the cost, modular, and readily available.
Anyone currently interested in this breadth of formats would need to spend maybe 20 thousand dollars to buy cameras like the Hasselblad Xpan, the Plaubel Makina 67, and one of the Fujica 690 bodies.
Putting all this into one body is almost miraculous.
Lomo have recently released a nicely featured 35mm film camera[1]. I wish something like the MRF2 could also be produced in this way.
[1] https://shop.lomography.com/us/lomo-mc-a-35-mm-film-camera-b...
To that end, if I can help others try medium format film, I want to add that there are plenty of inexpensive used medium-format cameras on eBay. I have purchased perhaps a dozen over the years—none of which even approached US $1000. In case you are not DIY inclined…
(Sadly, Japan has been the best place to order used camera gear but that has become cost prohibitive now for this American.)
Searching just now on eBay for "Yaschica TLR Mint" shows a number of cameras around $300 that are probably excellent (surprise, most are from Japan).
Can't afford a Hasselblad? Try "Bronica Mint" on eBay. Looks like $500 will get you in the game.
Mamiya cameras are built like tanks (and weigh as much). You could do a lot worse: "Mamiya Mint" is going to get you a few great models around $400 or so.
All of these were (are) considered damn fine film cameras.
(Mamiya tend to have interchangeable lenses, as does the Bronica. There are some Wide/Tele adapters for the Yashica, but generally you use them as-is. Most of these cameras are completely manual in operation—the more sought after Yashica though have some light-metering capabilities.)
(The Yashica and some of the Mamiya are TLR, twin-lens reflex—more or less equivalent to a rangefinder? The Bronica and some Mamiya you view through the lens 'TTL'.)
As for medium format, there are hundreds of Folding cameras that are pretty much as good as the obvious massive SLRs people are so keen on. I own and use a dozen of them, some of them absolutely legendary, like Zeiss Ikontas or Super Isolettes or the russian Iskras and Moskvas.
Quite frankly, having owned a few SLRs myself (I only kept a Bronica S2A with a 50mm lens) I more often than not use the folders because, well, for one thing I can literally have 3 in my bag with 3 different films! The good ones are as good or better than the SLRs, and as long as you don't mind a fixed lens, they do the job very well and often as way more character than the "system"'s ones.
Keep on rolling :-)
Otherwise I fully agree that buying old film cameras is still both the most practical and most fun way to get into the hobby.
I see Fuji GW690 bodies with a 90mm lens on various sites like keh in the $1200 range.
I have a Hasselblad 500 series camera from the 1980's that my father bought at a pawn shop near a military base. In the early 2000's professionals were dumping tons of medium format gear as they switched to digital cameras so he got a wide and telephoto lens. The problem is I never use them. They are big, heavy, klunky, and slow to operate. I've never liked print film. I used to be able to get 2 hour development of E-6 slide film but now I have to mail it off and wait over a week so I don't bother. I look at digital backs but most of them are for studio setups.
Electronics (MCU, sensors, displays, cables, LiPo, switches): ~$125 / ~£100
PCB share (DIY assembly; amortized per build): ~$10 / ~£6 [full 5× PCB batch ~ $35 / £28]
Hardware/fasteners/mech bits: ~$25 / ~£20
Optics (lenses + beam splitter): ~$115 / ~£90
Printed parts material: ~$25 / ~£20
Rough per-build total: ~$300 / ~£235 (add shipping/taxes and any PCB batch overhead you keep)There's the Mamiya Press which you can get for cheap but those are very large and heavy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamiya_Press
I've seen a lot of Mamiya 645 and 67 systems but those were probably from the 1980's and 90's.
Photography is an amazing hobby, highly recommend diving into it ^^!
1: https://photothinking.com/2021-07-03-mamiya-press-super-23-f...
[1] https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/2024-08-31-customizing-my-li...