Bronica SQ 135W Film Back Review
Shooting in this unique aspect ratio does dramatically change how you view your subjects and gives a more cinematic feel. 1/250s 80mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
Panoramics, so simple to do in the digital age. Every phone has a dedicated mode and if you are using a DSLR or mirrorless camera you can easily take a few photos and stitch them together in lightroom or photoshop. Back in the film days however, they required expensive, specialist and often bulky gear to shoot. Unless you picked up a Hasselblad Xpan/Fuji TX you had to shoot a roll of film in a camera one format above. For 35mm you had to shoot in a medium format camera and for 120 roll film you had to shoot in a large format camera. Despite all that extra cost and hassle, film panoramics remain one of the few areas that it beats out digital. Why? Because you capture everything in a single frame at a single moment in time. There are no issues with lining up different frames or the lighting and scenery changing in-between shots. You also don’t have to worry about distortions from turning the camera. It’s all there as you saw it.
The Bronica SQ 135W film back is a rare and expensive accessory. My version is a later SQ-Ai one which you can tell from the ISO dial being on the back and not on the top.
This is what drew me to shoot panoramics on film (that and the fact various landscape photography youtubers were shooting some amazing photographs with 6x17 cameras) and I wanted to have a go myself. But it really isn’t cheap. The Hasselblad Xpan/Fuji TX? You won’t get much change back from £4k. How about shooting 6x17 with a dedicated film back on my Intrepid 4x5 camera? Contacting a UK supplier last year that would cost me £850, almost three times what I paid for the Intrepid. Not to mention that shooting 6x17 only yields four shots on a roll of 120 so it is not only very unforgiving but also prohibitively expensive to shoot. In the end I settled on buying a 135W film back for my Bronica SQ-A. That wasn’t cheap either, I paid £550 for that alone, more than I paid originally for the camera kit.
A line-up of Toyota GT 86s suits a longer aspect ratio. 1/250s 80mm F2.8 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
The car I was there to shoot on the day was this unusual MG Montego race car. A long and narrow aspect ratio helps add to the sense of length. 1/250s 80mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
I shot all of these images handheld before I acquired my viewfinder mask. I had to make an educated guess on the framing and stood a little bit further back to give myself a bit more leeway. 1/250s 80mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
So, what do you get for your money? Well luckily in my case it was a newer SQ-Ai version in almost mint condition. It shoots 24x54mm frames on 35mm film which officially yields 23 images on a roll of 36 and 15 on a roll of 24. However, in practice you can get 24/16 so long as you start shooting at frame number 0 instead of 1. The images have an aspect ratio of 2.25:1 which is bang in the middle between a standard 1.5:1 (3:2) aspect ratio and the 3:1 of traditional panoramics. For reference Xpans give a longer 24x65mm frame size with an aspect ratio of about 2.7:1. There are other alternatives which include cropping shots taken on a 645 camera or with a 645 film back but this only produces 16 frames per roll and is very wasteful.
Sadly this blog is not sponsored by Burton Power. 1/250s 150mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
Panoramics can help show more context in a scene and not waste image space on sky or foreground that would have added nothing to an image. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
There were plenty of MGBs on track that day. 1/250s 80mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
What’s good about this setup is that it still stays as compact as shooting normally with the Bronica SQ-A (though this can also be shot with the smaller Bronica ETRS) which is not a very big and heavy camera compared to some other medium format systems. The only downside is that the standard focusing screen lacks line for 35mm (though the standard focusing screen on the ETRS does have these lines), which means you either need to buy another rare and expensive dedicated focus screen or do what I did and find someone who’ll 3D print a viewfinder mask for you. You can also wing it and guess where your frame lines are but obviously this is not entirely accurate. That is however what I did for the images you see in this blog which were my second roll through the camera.
Making some adjustments between time on track. 1/250s 80mm F4.0 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
MG ZRs are very popular for racing as they are cheap and easy to fix and or replace in the event of a crash. 1/250s 80mm F2.8 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
This Corvette C2 Stingray (possible even the top end L88) made for the perfect panoramic close-up. However without a framing mask I ended up cutting off the bottoms of the tyres. 1/250s 80mm F4.0 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
Despite it not being as long as other panoramic options, it is still a really good and usable focal length that transforms how you see and interpret scenes. The two most common aspect ratios in cinema are 1.85:1 and 2.4:1 which this nicely fits in between, and it does feel very cinematic when you are viewing your compositions with a viewfinder mask. The only downside is that you may miss compositions that would have worked well in the standard 6x6 square format, and it will also prevent a metered prism finder from working properly. That’s the advantage of having the dedicated focusing screen. With a longer frame it’s critically important to get your horizontal and vertical lines straight as you will lose a lot more of the image to cropping when correcting for this in post. It’s one of the key learning curves when shooting panoramics.
My 3D printed 135W viewfinder mask which I ordered off eBay. A bit flimsy but does the job.
So, is it worth spending all this money? That very much depends on what you want to shoot. I think for most people this is a step too far, while it is one of the cheaper ways to get into shooting panoramic film (even when considering the initial cost of buying the camera) it is still expensive and is not a film format that suits everyone’s shooting style. For those who are really keen than I can recommend picking one up if you can find it at the right price, yes there are more janky work arounds like modifying a standard 135N back which shoots normal 24x36mm frames, but at least with this you know it’ll work properly and can be repaired if needed. A big advantage of shooting with this instead of the Xpan is that there are many more lenses of different (longer) focal lengths and wider apertures available. That’s the Hasselblad’s Achilles heel.
The nerve centre at Brands Hatch fit beautifully into the 2.25:1 aspect ratio. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
My best racing shot on film on the day. With a narrower aspect ratio I didn’t capture as much fence in the foreground and it gives a greater sense of width to the whole track. 1/250s 150mm F4.0 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
Overall, I am glad I made this purchase as I intend to use it for many years to come. Although I will admit I don’t think I will ever get as much use out of it as shooting normal 6x6. But that’s the joy of a modular system, I can shoot away in square and then pull out this film back for when the scene better suits a panoramic. Another tool in the toolbox.
This Dutch Rover was a nice surprise to see on the day. The panoramic frame gives it more focus. 1/250s 50mm F5.6 Ilford Delta 400 with polariser.
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