As I mentioned, my Bronica ETRS is heavy, and today I noticed Ffordes had a couple of Speed Grips in stock. One was pretty clapped out, but the other was in good condition, so for £25 I ordered it. Or, at least, I might have. Ffordes have a weird system that allows multiple people to order the same item, then it goes to the first in the queue, so until you get a confirming email, you have no idea if you’ve bought something or not. This is a particular problem out of hours and even more so at weekends. GUYS – THIS REALLY HAS TO CHANGE!
I placed my order and, the grip has been removed from the website. Cause and effect? Maybe. No email yet. This sucks, yet time was, as soon as your order was placed the item was immediately removed from the website – done by software presumably. That’s a feature that really does need to be reintroduced.
Update, October 3: After spending the weekend not knowing whether or not I had succeeded in buying the thing, and email has just arrived confirming that I have, which is good as, with the prism/meter assembly fitted, the camera is quite awkward to pic up. The natural inclination is to grab the prism housing, which a previous owner had clearly been in the habit of doing, as the mounting lugs needed a little tweaking so that the fit was tight. The Grip will get past that.
Anyway, this may, or may not, be is my Speed Grip:-
Pic liberated from Ffordes, but as I’ve given them two plugs today, they really shouldn’t object.
And this is how it looks, aside from the slightly different prism housing. This pic is from the manual cover. Oddly, inside, it shows the correct design. Weird or what?
The grey bar on the side of the camera is the dark slide, which renders the film back lightproof – it’s removed if not actually in use, as there’s a risk the back might be accidentally released if it’s left in. And, of course, if you have film loaded, the camera won’t work!
