Some of you might have seen me two days ago roaming around the endless corridors of the campus: Black shirt, shorts, worn flip-flops and a large black camera on a tripod on my shoulder. But why would I take pictures of the boring campus in medium format? Well… why not?

On Tuesday I paid Foto Mayrhofer another visit and did some bulk shopping in photo equipment: Lisa bought some photo paper for her project in staged photography, I got myself two Ilfosol S developer packs, a wire release for my dear Mamiya RB 67 and -most importantly and most urgently- a Manfrotto tripod. Model #055CLB to be precise. And, boy, it wasn’t cheap but a bulky medium format camera does need a good tripod.

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And finally I was able to shoot long time exposures with the Mamiya which I always anticipated because of the lovely large format of 6 x 7 cm.

A guide to Mamiya RB 67 long time exposures

It wasn’t easy finding out about the T setting on the lens. Long time ago I learned that it stands for tempus and is another kind of the B, the (Flash)Bulb setting. I even remembered that instead of holding the trigger down, tempus requires the trigger on the wire release to be pushed once to open the shutter, and then again to close the shutter. Not so with the Mamiya RB 67. So I decided to write this short guide, mainly for myself before I forget about it again.

1. Change the independent mirror release knob on the lens with the wire release socket from the red letter • N to the orange letter • M.
2. Now set the shutter to the desired speed, in this case to T.
3. Remove the slide from the magazine
4. Push the trigger. Because the Mamiya RB 67 doesn’t have a Mirror Up button, you have to do it this way. The shutter will remain closed.
5. When you feel ready push the trigger on the cable release
6. Count the exposure time
7. When finished pull the shutter cocking lever to close the shutter and to cock the mirror spring again
8. Put the dark slide back in place
9. Wind the lever on the film magazine

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