Camera of the month February 2019

The first camera of the month was the Bronica S2 medium format camera and it turned into a bit of a nightmare for me, mostly because of age-related issues with the camera and some poor design decisions when the camera was manufactured. I ended up wasting a lot of film testing the camera out, but I will write a full review of the camera soon. The camera of the month for February will be a Chinese made medium format camera called the Great Wall DF-2 camera. The camera is a 6×6 medium format camera with an interesting history so I decided to pick up a copy for testing. I will be shooting this as my medium format camera this month.

My first impressions of the camera are that it is so small compared to the Bronica S2. I love the look and feel of the Bronica S2 but it is a heavy camera to lug around with you every day. The Great Wall DF-2 camera is tiny and extremely light in comparison. It is lighter and smaller than my Yashica mat 124G so it is easy to throw into my camera bag when going out. The lens seems to be interesting but there is not much information available about this camera on the internet so I will have to do some research on Chinese websites. I can read Chinese but it takes me a long time to read articles in Chinese so it will take me some time to get through all of them.

There are a lot of unique film cameras in China so if this camera works and it produces some interesting photos, then I will buy some more Chinese film camera and test them out.

Shaun.