Old lens conversion guide?

Colbo

Colbo

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Col
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Hi everyone, hopefully someone can help.
I've wanted to get a medium format camera for a while and looking to buy perhaps a Bronica body and lens seperate to get exactly what i want. I heard somewhere I'm sure that older lenses are not the same value in mm's as newer ones. Forgive me if this is completely wrong but as an example - a 35mm old lens would be equivalent to a new lens today of say 22mm. So if i wanted something along the lines of an 85mm id have to buy a 105mm? Do you get what i mean?

If someone knows of a site/comparison chart please would be helpful before I venture to buy.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Col
 
It's not that "older lenses are not the same value in mm's as newer ones" it's that the field of view of a lens is proportional to the film/sensor size. The "standard" that has been adopted is lenses for 35mm film or a “full frame” digital sensor (which is roughly the same size as 35mm film). For example a lens that gives approximatly the same field of view as your eye on 35mm/FF is 50mm. On a smaller APSC digital sensor (or crop sensor) to get the same field of view you would need something like a 35mm focal length lens.

And on 120 roll film such as a Bronica you would need something like 80mm focal length. See this https://photographybay.com/2016/02/06/understanding-medium-format-crop-factors/

It's also worth nothing that you are not going to be able to get "new" lenses for a Bronica, you will have to buy Bronica lenses and even ETRS lenses for an ETRS body or SQ lenses for an SQ-A or SQ-B body
 
To expand a little on Chris's reply: Bronica have made several different ranges over the years and they are not generally compatible with one another...
  • 'S' series 6x6
  • 'EC' series 6x6
  • 'ETR' series 6x4.5
  • 'SQ' series 6x6
  • 'GS' series 6x7
  • 'RF' series 6x4.5
They are all SLR types apart from the RF which is a rangefinder. So far as I am aware none of the lenses from one series can be used on any of the others so you need to know exactly what you are looking at. This page has quite a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronica
 
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