The Bronica S2A is my favourite camera. I own two of them. One is technically a Bronica S2 (the predecessor) and the other is the S2A (the slightly later, slightly more reliable revision). I had been planning to do a side-by-side comparison and an in-depth review of the S2A for some months, and the weather finally cleared enough that I could shoot the comparison footage. Then it rained for a solid week. By the time I needed to shoot the demonstration roll, I had to do it in my garage. With light stands and an old metal clothes rack as props. The results are not what I expected and not what most viewers came here to see, but they show what the camera can do in genuinely unfavourable conditions.
This is the writeup. If you have an S2 or an S2A, or you are thinking of buying one, here is what I have learned from a year of using both.
What the Bronica S2A is
The Bronica S2A is a 6x6cm medium format single-lens reflex camera produced by Zenza Bronica Kogyo in Tokyo from 1969 to 1977. It is the direct successor to the Bronica S2 (produced from 1965 to 1977; the two were sold in parallel for some years after the S2A launched). Both cameras share the same modular system, with interchangeable lenses, film backs and viewfinders.
Bronica was founded in the 1950s by Zenzaburo Yoshino with the goal of building a Japanese alternative to the Hasselblad. The system Yoshino designed had a focal plane shutter (Hasselblad uses leaf shutters in the lens) along with a fast standard lens (Nikkor-P 75mm f/2.8) and modular construction that allowed lenses, finders and backs to be swapped freely. Yoshino partnered with Nikon for lens supply, which gave the early Bronica system access to some of the best Japanese optics of the era. The Nikkor-P 75mm f/2.8 standard lens is, in my experience, one of the sharpest medium format lenses I have ever used.
The S2A was introduced in 1969 in response to known reliability issues with the S2’s film advance mechanism. Early S2 cameras had a reputation for the wind-on gear jamming, particularly when the camera was used heavily by professionals. Bronica redesigned the internal gear mechanism for the S2A (with what one source describes as “literally hundreds of internal changes and improvements”) and the new model became a genuinely reliable workhorse for the next eight years.
The external differences between S2 and S2A are minimal:
- Early S2A cameras have “S2A” engraved after the serial number on the top plate. From serial number 150037 (around 1973) the marking was dropped.
- The film advance crank is silver on the S2 and black on the S2A.
- The neck strap lugs were changed from 1973 onwards to match the lugs on the later EC model.
If you are buying a Bronica off eBay and the seller claims it is an S2A, check the serial number and the crank colour before paying the premium. There is a lot of confusion in the second-hand market about which model is which, and unscrupulous sellers will list S2 cameras as S2A to bump the price.
(I will confess at this point that during the filming of this video, I had my two cameras labelled the wrong way around in my own head. The one I had been calling my “S2” was actually an S2A and the one I had been calling my “S2A” was actually an S2. I worked this out about ten minutes into the recording by checking the serial numbers and the crank colours, which is an embarrassing thing to do on camera but a useful demonstration of how easy it is to get them confused.)
The specifications
Body: Steel and chrome construction, approximately 2kg with the standard 75mm lens fitted. This is a heavy camera by any standard. It is significantly heavier than a Hasselblad 500C/M of the same era. The build feels solid in the hand. Nothing creaks. Nothing flexes.
Format: 6x6cm square on 120 or 220 roll film. The interchangeable backs accept either film type, with a small switch on the back selecting between 120 (12 frames) and 220 (24 frames).
Shutter: Mechanical focal plane shutter, vertical travel, speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 second plus B. The shutter is controlled by a large dial on the right side of the body. Speeds are non-linear in the older style: 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000.
Flash sync: X-sync at 1/40 second according to Bronica’s own specifications. The shutter dial has small green markings at 1/15 and slower speeds indicating safe flash sync speeds for flash bulbs. Modern electronic flash sync at 1/40 means anything above that will produce partial-frame illumination. If you want fast sync, this is not the camera for it.
Aperture: On the standard 75mm lens, the aperture range is f/2.8 to f/22, controlled by a ring on the lens itself.
Mirror: Instant-return mirror with a unique design that swings downward rather than upward. This allows space for wide-angle lenses to project deep into the body without obstruction from the mirror, which is why the 40mm wide-angle lens (more on this below) is even possible on this format.
Lens mount: Bronica’s own Z-coupling bayonet, removable helicoid focusing mount, accepts lenses from 40mm to 200mm in the standard helicoid plus longer telephotos with their own integrated focusing.
Standard lens: Nikkor-P 75mm f/2.8. A Tessar-derived design with excellent sharpness across the frame, particularly impressive given the lens was designed in the early 1960s. The Nikkor-P is roughly equivalent to a 50mm lens on 35mm film in terms of angle of view.
Other lenses available (all of these are hard to find now on the second-hand market):
- Auto-Nikkor 40mm f/4 (wide angle, very rare, £300 to £500)
- Nikkor-O 50mm f/2.8 (wider standard, less common)
- Nikkor-H 50mm f/3.5 (cheaper 50mm option)
- Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 (medium telephoto, popular for portraits)
- Nikkor-P 200mm f/4 (longer telephoto, hard to find)
The 40mm is the holy grail for many Bronica users. It is the only proper wide-angle option in the standard helicoid mount, and good examples sell for £300 to £500 on eBay. I have been watching for one for over a year and the few I have seen have either been priced beyond my budget or have sold to a quicker buyer before I could put a bid in.
The famous shutter sound
I cannot review this camera without talking about the shutter sound.
The Bronica S2 and S2A are famous (within the small community of medium format film enthusiasts) for producing one of the most satisfying mechanical shutter sounds of any camera ever made. When you fire the shutter, the sequence is:
- Mirror swings down out of the light path (instead of up like most SLRs)
- Auxiliary shutter curtain in front of the film plane retracts
- Focal plane shutter curtains fire across the frame
- Auxiliary shutter returns
- Mirror returns to viewing position when you wind on the film
The whole sequence is mechanical and genuinely loud. The classic description, which I have seen repeated in multiple reviews, is “like slamming a car door”. It is a deep, percussive thunk that you can hear from across a room. It announces the presence of the camera with no possible ambiguity.
This is not a camera for discreet street photography. If you want to shoot quietly, get a leaf shutter Hasselblad or a rangefinder. The Bronica is for situations where you do not care who hears it, or where you actively want people to know you are taking a photograph.
For me, the shutter sound is a feature, not a bug. There is something genuinely satisfying about the tactile feedback of firing a Bronica. The shutter sound tells you the camera has done its job. You can fire it twenty times in a row and each one will feel as good as the first.
The handling
The Bronica S2A handling is uncompromising in the way that German and Japanese cameras of the late 1960s tend to be. Every control is mechanical and every position is fixed, with every action requiring a deliberate movement. There is no automation. No metering. No electronic feedback.
Film advance: Large crank on the right side of the body. The crank does two things in one motion. The first portion of the wind moves the film forward to the next frame. The second portion (which gets noticeably stiffer near the end) cocks the shutter and resets the mirror to the viewing position. The total throw is large; you cannot wind quickly without a deliberate two-handed motion.
Good practice: Do not leave the shutter cocked when the camera is in storage. The spring tension on a cocked shutter degrades the springs over time. Always fire the shutter to release the tension before putting the camera away. This applies to most mechanical cameras but is particularly worth following on the S2 and S2A because the shutter springs are a known wear point.
Focusing: Large knurled knob on the front of the body operates the helicoid mount, which moves the entire lens assembly forward and back. The focusing throw is about 270 degrees from minimum focus to infinity, which is long and allows for precise focus. The standard ground glass with split-image rangefinder is bright enough in most light, though it dims significantly in low light (a known limitation of mid-1960s focusing screens compared to modern bright screens).
Shutter release: Large round button on the front of the body, threaded for a cable release. There is also a second cable release thread on the bottom plate for use with the camera mounted on a tripod. Both work fine. The release button can be locked in position by rotating it slightly, which prevents accidental firing.
Dark slide interlock: The camera will not fire unless the dark slide has been removed from the film back. This is a useful safety feature that prevents the most common medium format mistake (firing the camera with the slide still in, resulting in no exposure and one wasted frame on the next wind). It does mean you have to remember to pull the slide before firing, but the alternative (firing with the slide in) is worse.
Loading film
Loading a Bronica film back is straightforward but requires a few attempts to get reliable. The roll of fresh film goes in the bottom chamber, the empty take-up spool goes in the top chamber. The paper leader is threaded across the back and onto the take-up spool, then advanced past the arrows printed on the backing paper until those arrows align with a red dot inside the back.
If you over-wind past the red dot (which I did with my Cosmo Photo Mono roll for this test shoot, fairly easy to do because the paper resistance is slight), you will lose one frame at the start of the roll. You will get 11 frames instead of 12 on a 120 roll. Not the end of the world but worth avoiding.
Once the back is closed and the dark slide reinstalled, the back attaches to the camera body via a bayonet on the back of the camera. The interlock then engages and the camera is ready to wind to frame 1.
The shoot
The plan had been to take the S2A outdoors for a real test shoot on landscape and architecture. The week after I filmed the indoor review section was a complete washout. Rain every day. By the time I needed to shoot something to demonstrate the camera, I had run out of weather options.
I decided to do an abstract geometry shoot in my garage instead. Not the most conventional camera test, but a useful demonstration of what the camera can do when conditions force you to work with what you have.
I set up two light stands in the garage. One main light overhead, one accent light at floor level for shadows. The subject was a set of metal bars from an old clothes hanging rack I had recently dismantled. The pieces had nice geometric shapes and would throw clean shadows. I clamped them at various angles to walls and the rafters, lit them carefully and worked out compositions.
Film for the shoot was Cosmo Photo Mono, a film I had bought on a whim and not used before. ISO 100. Black and white. I was using it as a test film rather than for any specific creative reason.
Frame 1: A piece of the rack laid flat on the floor, light raking across it from one side throwing long shadows. Camera on a tripod pointing straight down. Metered at f/8, 1/30 second.
Frames 2 to 4: Various clamped arrangements against the wall, demonstrating shallow depth of field at f/2.8. One of the things the Nikkor-P 75mm f/2.8 does well is render out-of-focus areas with smooth transitions and pleasant character.
Frames 5 to 7: Looking straight up into the rafters of the garage. Symmetrical compositions, stopped down to f/16 to keep the whole frame sharp, exposures around 1 second on the tripod.
Frames 8 to 12: More variations on the rack pieces and the rafters in combination, trying different lighting setups.
The whole shoot took about an hour. Not the planned shoot but a useful exercise in working with what was available.
On depth of field
One thing the garage shoot demonstrated nicely was the shallow depth of field that 6x6 medium format gives you at wide apertures.
Here is the rough rule of thumb (which will start arguments online but is reasonably close to correct for practical purposes): the depth of field on a medium format 6x6 camera at a given aperture is roughly equivalent to a 35mm camera at one stop wider. So f/2.8 on the Nikkor-P 75mm gives you about the depth of field of f/1.6 on a 35mm camera. That is a useable shallow depth of field that is genuinely hard to achieve on 35mm without expensive fast lenses.
The bigger the film or sensor, the shallower the depth of field at a given aperture (for the same composition, ignoring some technical caveats about subject distance and circles of confusion that internet forums love to argue about). This is one of the main reasons medium format remains popular even with the existence of full-frame digital cameras with very fast lenses. The shallow depth of field on 6x6 has a particular quality that is hard to replicate.
If anyone wants to argue with my f/1.6 equivalent number, the comments are open. The exact equivalence is not the point. The point is that medium format gives you shallow depth of field at modest apertures.
Reliability
This is the awkward part of any Bronica review.
The S2 and S2A have a reputation for known reliability issues. The film advance gears in early S2 cameras were prone to jamming. The focal plane shutter can develop timing issues at slower speeds (1/8 and below) as the lubricants dry out. The focusing screen foam degrades over decades and causes infinity focus problems (I have a separate piece on fixing that if you are experiencing it on your own camera). The faux leather covering on the body peels at the edges as the glue degrades. The film backs can develop light leaks as the foam seals around the dark slide wear out.
In my own experience, I have put about 30 to 40 rolls through my S2 (which I bought first) and have not yet had a winding jam. So either my S2 is one of the lucky ones, or the jam reputation is overstated, or I have not yet shot enough rolls to hit the failure. The other issues (foam degradation, light seal wear, etc) are universal across all examples of this age and are part of owning a 50-year-old camera.
If you are considering buying a Bronica S2 or S2A, my advice is:
- Buy from a seller who allows returns. Test the camera thoroughly within the return window. Fire every shutter speed. Wind a full roll through it. Check infinity focus with a known target.
- Budget for a CLA (clean, lube, adjust) from a competent vintage camera repairer. Even working examples benefit from a service. Cost in the UK is £100 to £200.
- Buy the foam seal kit and replace the back seals yourself. This is a cheap and easy job that removes one common failure point.
- Read about the focusing screen foam problem before you start shooting. Knowing what to look for saves you wondering why your shots are soft.
If you do all of this, you can have a Bronica S2 or S2A working reliably for years. Mine have been my main 6x6 cameras for a year and a half now and I still reach for them more often than any other camera I own.
Verdict
The Bronica S2A is heavy, chunky, bulky and noisy. It is also one of the best medium format SLRs ever made for the money. A clean working example with a Nikkor-P 75mm f/2.8 lens currently sells in the UK for £200 to £350 depending on condition. That is roughly a fifth of what an equivalent Hasselblad 500C/M would cost, and the image quality from the Nikkor-P 75mm is competitive with anything Hasselblad ever fitted to a 500-series body.
The shutter sound alone is worth the price of admission.
If you can deal with the weight and the reliability quirks and the eBay gamble of buying second-hand, the Bronica S2A is a genuinely great camera. It has been my primary medium format SLR for over a year. It is going to remain my primary medium format SLR for a long time yet.
What’s next
More film shoots with the S2A as soon as the weather permits. I am planning a dedicated landscape outing with this camera when conditions allow. I also have my eye on a 40mm wide-angle lens if one ever comes up at a sensible price.
If you have a Bronica S2 or S2A and you have stories to share, the comments are open. If you have a 40mm Auto-Nikkor you want to sell at a reasonable price, my email is in the channel description.