Being the very visual person I am, I’m generally drawn to cameras more by the visual appearance and quality of the camera than the technical aspects. The Brook-Plaubel Veriwide 100 was one of these cameras as I find it visually appealing and have always wanted to own one from the very beginnings of collecting cameras. Still, after shooting with it, it’s one of the best cameras I’ve shot.
The Plaubel Makina 67 is a camera that I’ve long struggled to justify, but that simultaneously has on multiple occasions, given me the worst cases of gear acquisition syndrome I can recall! It’s medium format, which I rarely have a desire to shoot, yet I’ve always felt that if I was to shoot the format more it would be with one of these. The reputation of the lens, the size of the camera, it’s simplicity, the fact that it’s a rangefinder, and even it’s beautiful German functionalist design make for the perfect storm of ideal features for me… so in the end I buckled and bought one – but as a dedicated 35mm photographer and medium format sceptic, was it the right choice?
The Plaubel Makina 670, in my opinion, is the perfect medium format rangefinder camera. Hell, I’ll go one step further and say it’s the perfect camera. So much so, that it ruined my long-time love affair with the 35mm film format as a whole.
