Jeremy H. Greenberg
- Jul 22, 2019
- 2 min read

Blog #162 The Makina 67 & Ilford XP2 Super 400 Medium Format Black and White Film

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📷 📷 Hobbyist

I’ve blogged before about camera pairings. It’s fun to experiment with different camera/lens/film combinations. This can lead to an understanding and repertoire of gear that you can draw on for different applications later on.

In this blog post, I plan to share my experience and some images taken with this combination. How did I come to have this chunk of glass and metal? Well, some time ago after acquiring a gorgeous Hasselblad 503 CX, I began playing around with medium format films. I love the “3-D” quality that this film size can achieve. The “hassie” is an outstanding piece of equipment but a PITA to use. I value ergonomics and UI above all. I’m happy to sacrifice a pinch of image quality for that feels-right-in-the-hand quality. The hassie just wasn’t for me.

Fortunately for me, friend and photographer Mike (@analogmike) was ready to part with his makina 67. It was a fair swap and off we went. The makina is a relatively thin but tall and heavy as hell medium format rangefinder. The massive Nikon made lens extends from the body with the touch of a button and some bellows to keep the light away. Shutter speed and aperture rings are on the lens and focus ring surrounds the shutter release button on the top right. It’s got a light meter that works although this one’s got a short and it eats through batteries in one day unless you remove them overnight.

The camera is big and heavy but makes outstanding images. It’s way easier to use than the hassie and the light metre takes some of the “heavy lifting” out of the image-making equation. Paired with Ilford’s XP2 Super, it’s a super fine 400 speed film with great tones and somewhat high contrast. The nice thing about this film is that it’s a black and white but gets processed using C-41 developers so you can drop it off at the lab and have your images scanned and e-mailed to you within the hour at most places.

I can’t say that I’ve pushed or pulled this film but I would expect that it would behave well under various conditions. Try some, you might like it!

The light is always right.

JHG

*Images: © Limelight Limited

Where: Tai Kwun Contemporary, Soho, Hong Kong

Subject: Street Photography

Gear: makina 67 + Ilford XP2 Super medium format ISO 400 black and white film