Rare Camera: 18 karat Gold Mamiya RB67 ProSD

This camera is so heavy, had Indiana Jones been a photographer, the gold Mamiya RB67 would have been what he used instead of a bag of sand to weigh down the trap of the golden idol. According to Thorley, when the venerable RB67 is mentioned in on-line forums people start coughing up all sorts of stories about how heavy and unwieldy they are, how the mirror slap alone can cause a shock wave big enough to damage all the digital sensors in a five kilometre radius and that if dropped on your foot you’ll know the pain of so many cartoon characters who’ve had mishaps with an anvil. And guess what? It’s still worth it!

anniversary camera gold mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography vintagecamera

Jokes aside, while the camera will seem hefty compared to modern DSLR’s, it is not unwieldy, because of its good ergonomics. Through the seventies and nineties medium format cameras were the top-tier professional tools, just as big, horizontal and vertical grip DSLR’s are today. Today the digital sensor technology is only just catching up, making cameras like the Pentax 645D/Z feasible for mass production. It is quite possible that in ten years time the old and elegant tools such as the Mamiya RB67 will no longer seem so big and heavy by comparison.

Made primarily for landscape and studio work, the RB67 (RB stands for “Rotating Back” – a very convenient feature that allows the photographer to twist the back instead of changing the orientation of the camera itself) was designed and built like the proverbial tank.120 Studio The moment you pick up one of these cameras, you know it was not intended for street photography or quick snapshots. Now, of course some of us are deliberately going to use it for that anyway, but one look at the RB67 and it’s clear that this is primarily a tripod camera.

anniversary camera gold logo mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography

This very special gold RB67 ProSD was released 1990 in a limited edition of only 300 units worldwide to commemorate Mamiya’s 50th anniversary. It comes in a beautiful lacquered box with a custom anniversary logo. The box is opened by a special key and the first thing that one finds inside is a pair of white cotton gloves.

When released this camera cost roughly 15000 German Marks, or $9000 in 2017 money. It doesn’t surface very often, but it seems that its price as a collector’s item is dropping. One was sold by Bonhams in 2013 for as little as $1400. Think about it – for a fraction of a price of a new Leica you could get a camera with vastly superior imaging qualities, just as well made, and even more ostentatious.

anniversary camera gold mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography vintagecamera

On the side of the camera there is a golden plate which reads “Mamiya 1940-1990 50 years in Photography”. According to Camera-Wiki Mamiya was founded in May 1940 by Mamiya Seiichi (間宮精一) and Sugawara Tsunejirō (菅原恒二郎) as Mamiya Kōki Seisakusho (マミヤ光機製作所, Mamiya Optical Works). It was based in Tokyo, Hongo, and its first camera was the Mamiya Six, a 6×6 folder with coupled rangefinder that was focused by moving the film plane. The original owner of a gold RB67 ProSD got a golden nameplate with their own name engraved.

anniversary camera gold mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography vintagecamera

If you are interested in owning one of these rare cameras, here is the Mamiya RB67 ProSD Manual, and some good articles about the camera.

  1. Classic Cameras: 6 Photos and 7 Anecdotes from the Mamiya RB67 (by B&H Photo and Video)
  2. Mamiya RB67 Camera Guide (by Helluin.org)
  3. Mamiya RB67 Pro (by PhotoEthnography)
  4. Mamiya RB67 (by Thorley Photographics)

anniversary camera gold mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography vintagecameraanniversary camera gold mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography vintagecamera anniversary camera gold mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography vintagecameraanniversary camera gold mamiya mamiyarb67 mediumformat photography vintagecamera

The piercing beauty of rocky moors of the Peak District National Park

The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennine Chain – a range of mountains and hills in separating North West England from Yorkshire and North East England.[Wikipedia] It is a wonderful place to discover. There are mountains to hike, caverns to explore, skies to glide, charming little towns and villages with teashops to visit and real taverns where the locals serve you free beer. You heard right – after you prove to have come down from the mountains (for example by showing the pictures you had taken) you are served a proper pint of the local lager. Or perhaps it’s just the case at the charming Old Nags Head in Edale.

The hike that my friends and I did started in Edale, and took us all the way up to the Kinder Scout – the highest peak of the Park at 636m (or 2.087 feet). If you’ve ever been to the UK you will probably agree that the weather there is somewhat unpredictable. “Fierce Mild” as Dylan Moran once coined it (you have to say it out load with a strong Scottish accent or it won’t work). As a photographer be prepared for mostly overcast days, with occasional glimpses of sunlight. Even without the sun the landscape is astonishing in all its barren, rocky and windy beauty.

Almost all of the photos in this gallery have been shot with the first version of Nikon’s 70-200mm f/2.8 IF ED VR lens. It is heavy but its medium telephoto focal length range is perfect and versatile for landscape shots while hiking. The vibration reduction elliminates the need to use the tripod even with a high resolution, small pixel size body like the D800. The only reason to bring a tripod would be shooting at close apertures like f/8 and the day was very cloudy. On the other hand, the wide aperture of this lens makes it possible to achieve separation even in case of relatively remote objects (like trees) against far away background. Amazing!

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon path peakdistrict road travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape mountains nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict rocky travel uk

70200mm architecturebritain bridge hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict stone travel uk

70200mm animal goat hiking landscape nationalpark naturebritain Nikon peakdistrict travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon path peakdistrict road travel uk

70200mm hiking landscape mountainsbritain nationalpark nature Nikon peakdistrict stream travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark nature Nikon peakdistrict travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape mountains nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict rocky travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict rocky travel uk

70200mm britain hiking landscape nationalpark Nikon peakdistrict travel uk village

Street Photography – Our walks of life are different, but are we?

I’m starting to publish a street photography series entitled “Our walks of life are different, but are we?”. The more people I “catch” on a photo, the more looking at them makes me aware of the importance of where we come from and where we are going. Does it matter?


art life b&w blackandwhite photography street streetphoto

art life b&w blackandwhite photography street streetphoto

art life b&w blackandwhite photography street streetphoto

art life b&w blackandwhite photography street streetphoto

Essential Wordpres Tips: Add tags to images and attachments and include them in HTML for SEO purposes

Whether you are a beginning blogger or an Instagram influencer, it is very important for your content to be “up there” in the search results. This not only applies to your posts and articles, but also to your meticulously crafted images. The world’s most famous and popular blogging platform, WordPress, is not prepared “out of the box” to make your images Google-friendly, but can be easily extended to tackle this problem.

Your images are not only pretty pictures for humans to look at and like. Underneath they need to be titled and categorized, so that Google and social networks can snatch them and catalogue and display in a relevant manner. By default, the HTML attributes “title”, and “alt” (alternative text, where to put your own custom tags) are not filled-in by WordPress. This means that although your images appear nicely on your blog or website, they may not easily get to the top of Google’s image searches.

To improve the way WordPress handles your images, just include the four snippets described below in the functions.php of your theme (or better, child theme). You can also download the snippet as text file to paste it easily.

  1. Add tags to your images and attachments in WordPress editor

    This function, first found here, will add a new text box, “Tags” to all of your images and attachments in the WordPress admin panel.
    function add_tags_to_attachments() {
    register_taxonomy_for_object_type( 'post_tag', 'attachment' );
    }
    add_action( 'init' , 'add_tags_to_attachments' );

  2. (Optional) Include the images in the archive/summary pages of your WordPress blog.

    function category_and_tag_archives( $wp_query ) {
    $my_post_array = array('post','page','attachment');
    if( $wp_query->get( 'category_name' ) || $wp_query->get( 'cat' ) )
    $wp_query->set( 'post_type', $my_post_array );
    if( $wp_query->get( 'tag' ) )
    $wp_query->set( 'post_type', $my_post_array );
    }

  3. Include the titles and image tags in the HTML of your posts and pages

    This function, first found here, will make WordPress include your titles and tags in the HTML code used to display your images within posts, pages and articles. It will only work from now on. It will not add the title nor the tags to your existing posts, pages or articles. You would have to modify your database in order to achieve this (or go through all of your past images manually).
    function inserted_image_titles( $html, $id ) {
    $attachment = get_post($id);
    $thetitle = $attachment->post_title;
    //
    $tags_str = '';
    $tags_array = wp_get_post_tags($id);
    foreach ($tags_array as $tag) {
    $tags_str .= $tag->name.' ';
    }
    if($tags_str != '') {
    $tags_str = substr($tags_str, 0, strlen($tags_str)-1);
    }
    $output = str_replace('<img', '
    //
    if(strpos($output, 'alt=""')===false) {
    $output = str_replace('" width', ' '.$tags_str.'" width', $output);
    } else {
    $output = str_replace('alt=""', 'alt="'.$tags_str.'"', $output);
    }
    return $output;
    }
    add_filter( 'media_send_to_editor', 'inserted_image_titles', 15, 2 );

  4. Include the titles and image tags in the HTML of your posts’ featured images

    This function, first found here, will make WordPress include your titles and tags in the HTML code used to display your featured images. It will make them present site-wide, including your past posts, pages and articles.
    function featured_image_titles($attr, $attachment = null){
    $attr['title'] = get_post($attachment->ID)->post_title;
    //
    $tags_str = '';
    $tags_array = wp_get_post_tags($attachment->ID);
    foreach ($tags_array as $tag) {
    $tags_str .= $tag->name.' ';
    }
    if($tags_str != '') {
    $tags_str = substr($tags_str, 0, strlen($tags_str)-1);
    }
    $attr['alt'] = (($attr['alt']=='')?'':$attr['alt'].' ').$tags_str;
    return $attr;
    }
    add_filter('wp_get_attachment_image_attributes', 'featured_image_titles', 10, 2);

I hope this helped you to improve your blog and reach more traffic! If you have any comments, please drop them below.

Street Photo: Man making a living by playing saxophone on the street in Murcia

I met this street saxophone player while waiting at the Cathedral Square in Murcia. In exchange for a few coins he agreed to pose for the photo. It was tricky because I had to go all the way down to the ground to take it, and also because of the very high dynamic range present in the scene. The cathedral was blazing in the sunlight while the artist was in the shadow. For the D800 this wasn’t a problem at all, and in fact I feel that it could still handle 1 or 2 more stops of light level difference, which is remarkable. The 20mm f/1.8 Nikkor is very good at separating the subject from the background, despite being a very wideangle lens. My lesson from today… never hesitate to ask strangers to pose!