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Lens Adapter Leica - Mamiya (43mm on Leica)?


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Folks,

I have a Leica M8 and M7 and also a Mamiya-7 system, the latter including the

lovely Mamiya 43mm wide-angle lense.

 

I am wondering if there is a way to put the Mamiya lens on a Leica M?

 

Did anoybody do that, is there an adapter available?

 

I checked cameraquest.com, but did not see anything like that.

Maybe the lens mounts are too different, maybe they are not...

 

Regards,

Peter

--

Leica M7, M8

Mamiya 7

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It ought to be possible, yes. You'd end up with an admittedly unusual but expensive, and I'd imagine large and awkward standard lens, with, I suppose, no rangefinder coupling. If you're really keen on that focal length you can get the Pentax 43/1.9 for a lot less than its original silly price, or you can get one of several 40mm lenses, or you can get the fascinating-looking Super Rokkor 45/2.8.
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I cannot see this working. The rear element of the 43mm lens is wider than the lens mount in

the Leica. I don't have them in front of me right now, but I am pretty sure that is the case.

Even if it was not, it is very close and would probably cause a lot of vignetting. As good as

the 43mm is, I strongly doubt it is better in the center than a 50mm summicron/summilux,

not to

mention the fact that it is slow at f/4.5. In any case, as much as I love the 43mm lens on the

Mamiya 7II, I just don't think it would make any sense to use it on the M8. If you could get

the same angle of view that would be one thing, but as Peter said, it would just be an

awkward standard lens.

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With all due respect to others, it depends on what you want to accomplish. If you used a makeshift bellows (which could be nothing more than a piece of dark cloth) between the camera body and the lens, and if you not only don't worry about perfect orientation between the body and the lens but look for imperfect orientation, the resulting photographs will be very interesting.
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Another difficulty is that the Mamiya lens has a lens shutter which is normally closed, and it requires, I think, a suitable electric signal, normally from the camera body, to trigger it to open, and how long it should stay open (I believe that the shutter speed dial is on the camera, not on the lens).
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Robert -- I got the impression that Peter was looking to use the lens in a normal way on a

Leica body, not to use it to create special effects. Assuming that is the case, he would have a

very rough time of it and it makes sense to let him know that, since his question was whether

there was an adapter. And Ross's point is not one to be brushed off...even if you do want to

use it for special effects, you would need to find a way to keep the shutter open, as it

defaults to closed...<P>In any case, if Peter is out to experiment, then by all means, give it

your all, but if he is just looking to put the Mamiya 43mm lens on the M8 for the sake of it,

there are probably much more productive ventures....

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Could you explain what you mean by barrel lenses Robert? I am not familiar with what you

are referring to. As for the problems vs. opportunities line, you are of course right. I just got

the impression from the first post that Peter was not a tinkerer or very familiar with the

technical hurdles of this sort of thing, otherwise he probably would have phrased the

question in another way. In any case, I guess we just see different sides on this...

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>Could you explain what you mean by barrel lenses<P>

 

If only people bother to read what they wrote ... he means the lenses are mounted on a built-in <i>bellows</i> of the camera and thus collapsible into the body, which is not true. Unlike the Mamiya 6, the 7 does not have the bellows.

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> If only people bother to read what they wrote...

 

I expect Robert meant what he wrote regarding barrel lenses. The 7's in-lens shutter wouldn't have to be used for timing the shot if you could get the electronic shutter to simply stay open (yes, that would require electronics). Then the 7 lens would act just like a barrel lens.

 

Stuart, a barrel lens is a large format/repro or other lens that can either be mounted in a shutter (like a Copal) or in a plain tube typically with an aperture diaphram (called a "barrel"). People have often used LF barrel lenses (or even enlarging lenses) on a bellows for macro work with smaller formats.

 

At the risk of naysaying, I agree that this combination seems unlikely to be much fun, but to each their own. Now maybe getting that beautiful 43 onto a funky 35mm body that could actually infinity focus it, and use the coverage for movements...

 

Later,

 

Clyde

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To be clear on why I don't expect it to be fun---I don't think you could get the rear element of the 43 close enough to the film to get reasonably distant focus. If it could focus even at eight or ten feet, however, Robert's thought of a dark cloth bellows could make for a fun afternoon.

 

I think this sort of thing would be more fun, though, with most any SLR 50mm (and, at least for me, used only on the M8). Then you'd be sure to get infinity focus, still have room to move it around, and have quick feedback on results (you could compensate for the unpredictable nature of focus and framing in such a beast).

 

And ditto others, if you don't want a project, or if all you want is another lens, getting the Mamiya to work on the Leica seems like too much effort.

 

--clyde

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Hey, I know that the original poster was probably talking about a conventional link between the camera and the lens :)

 

The post just brought something to mind a technique that I think is interesting. I hesitated about offering a link, apart from the ASC article about a technically unusual film that was presented at the Sundace Festival, because I know of only one example on the net, and some people may have a problem with the content. However, here it is so that people can see that the technique is perhaps technically and artistically interesting: http://www.chucksmithphoto.com/fineart/index.html The photographs are not a product of Photoshop. They are a product, in part, of a camera body and lens that are not in normal alignment.

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The silence is truly funny.

 

My hat is off to Clyde Rogers for being the only person who was able to visualize what might happen if one had a camera body in one hand (or maybe on a tripod) and a lens, separated from the body by a flexible homemade bellows, maybe connected electronically, in the other hand. A good enough concept for the American Society of Cinematographers magazine to discuss, but apparently not here, at least with the example that I posted :)

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