C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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The Plaubel PL 67 TLLC (Through-The-Lens Light Cell) is a 6x7cm medium-format single-lens reflex camera produced under the Plaubel brand in the 1980s. By this period, the historic Frankfurt-based Plaubel & Co. had been acquired by Japanese interests, and camera manufacture was carried out in Japan, with Mamiya Optical reported as a production partner for at least some Plaubel camera bodies of this era. The result is a camera that draws on Japanese manufacturing quality while carrying the Plaubel brand identity -- by then associated with the successful Plaubel Makina 67 rangefinder series.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the — format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →C41
Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
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Kodak Ektar 100 is a fine-grain C-41 color negative film with saturated color and high sharpness.
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Before you buy used
About this camera
A professional 6x7 modular SLR with TTL through-the-lens light cell metering, produced under the Plaubel brand in the 1980s.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 120, 6x7cm (~10 exp per roll) |
| Mount | Plaubel PL67 bayonet (proprietary) |
| Meter | TTL silicon light cell |
| Exposure modes | ~Manual, aperture-priority |
| Shutter | ~Focal-plane |
| Viewfinder | Pentaprism SLR |
| Era | ~Mid-to-late 1980s |
| Manufacture | ~Japan (Mamiya Optical involvement reported) |
Plaubel & Co. was founded in Frankfurt in 1902 and produced precision cameras -- including the famous Makina strut-folder series -- for most of the twentieth century. By the 1970s the company was in financial difficulty, and in 1975 it was acquired by Doi (Japan), a Tokyo-based photo retail and distribution group. Under Japanese ownership, Plaubel developed the Makina 67 (1979) and Makina W67 (1980), Japanese-designed and manufactured cameras that used the Plaubel brand to position themselves in the premium compact-medium-format market.
The PL 67 TLLC represents a further extension of the Japanese-era Plaubel product line into the professional modular SLR segment -- a market dominated in the 1980s by Hasselblad, Mamiya, Bronica, and Pentax. The camera was intended to offer a competitive professional system body under the Plaubel name. It did not achieve the commercial success or market presence of the Makina 67 series, and it is considerably rarer on the used market today.
Production and discontinuation dates are not precisely documented in publicly available sources.
The PL 67 TLLC is historically interesting as a document of the Japanese-era Plaubel strategy: the brand, by the mid-1980s, was a commercial vehicle for positioning Japanese-manufactured cameras in the European professional market. The TTL metering integration was a genuine technical advancement for the 6x7 format -- Hasselblad did not offer TTL metering on its bodies until the 2000FCW, and Mamiya's RB67 system required a metering prism finder.
For working photographers of the 1980s, a 6x7 SLR with integrated TTL metering simplified exposure workflow considerably relative to separate handheld metering or metered prism finders. The PL 67 TLLC offered that workflow in a body positioned as a professional alternative to the established Mamiya and Pentax 6x7 systems.
The camera is rare enough today that it occupies a specialist-collector niche. Parts and service support are limited, and the Plaubel brand's association with the more famous Makina 67 rangefinder means the PL 67 system is often overlooked in the medium-format SLR collector market.
The PL 67 TLLC uses the proprietary Plaubel PL67 bayonet mount. Lenses were manufactured to this mount specifically for the system; adaptation from other mounts is not straightforwardly possible given the flange requirements of a 6x7 focal-plane SLR.
Likely system accessories (to be verified):
BW
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →Plaubel PL 67 TLLC
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