Mamiya TLR Sharpness

Hello All

 

Let me preface this question by saying I am a long time digital shooter who has

recently made the leap into medium format film. I'm discovering I have a lot to

learn but I really welcome the challenge.

 

Currently my only medium format camera is a Mamiya C330 TLR I acquired from an

Uncle who no longer wanted it. I'm in the process of setting up a home darkroom

but while I do that I've been having a local lab process the film for me and

provide a printed contact sheet.

 

Now granted, I am basing this purely on the contact sheet, but my images seem

much softer then I expected, especially when focused closer to infinity. I know

the Mamiya is no Rollei in terms of lens sharpness but I was really expecting

better then what I've gotten so far. Shooting outdoors most of my expsosures

have been in the f/11 range at about 125 for shutter speed.

 

I have two lenses for the camera - a black 80mm and what appears to be an older

chrome 65mm. Right now I've only used the 80mm as the chrome lens seems to be

sticking a bit at slower speeds.

 

So my question is this...are Mamiya TLR lenses typically a tad soft? Is there

something I should be checking? Is there one generation of Mamiya lenses

notably sharper then another?

 

Anyway, help and suggestions would be very much appreciated.

The Mamiya C330 lenses were very good lenses,you would have a hard time telling one photo from another, between the Mamiya and the Rollie especially at F11. Your lenses might have problems , or your camera might not be aligned properly. I suggest you do a set of test, with the camera on a tripod, shooting at different distances and f-stops to see how good these lenses really are.

Look at your negatives with a loupe. If you don't have a loupe, use a camera lens as a magnifying glass.

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ANY decent camera will give you a LOT more detail than a contact sheet is capable of resolving. A Mamiya C330 is a professional level medium format camera with lenses that are fully capable of professional results, if they're clean, well focused, and if the film, exposure, lighting and processing are up to the task.

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There are small differences from one lens to another, and small differences between Mamiya lenses and those legandary magical Zeiss lenses. But in photos taken at f/11 and examined only as contact sheets, you're not going to see those differences.

Did your lab make the contact print from negative strips while they

were in a Print File sleeve? When my lab contact prints negatives for

me they put three strips of four frames each in a Print File "transparent" sleeve to keep them together and make handling easier. The resulting contact print is ok to see your subject matter and judge exposure, but to evaluate sharpness, an enlargement made from the bare negative should be used. Why not select a favorite image and have the lab do a 5X5 or 8X8 inch enlargement?

Hello, here is what I remember about my C330. Much of apparent sharpness is due to good contrast and accutance (edge definition) and ZERO camera shake. I think the C330 lenses are probably fairly sharp by todays standards, but not great in contrast/flare as they wern't built with todays exotic glasses or coatings.

 

Shooting Tri-X in a studio with hot lights or strobe, the sharpness was good enough for 11x14. Not grainless, but not too crunchy and sharp enough to POP at arms length. Outdoors with Plus-X and a tripod produced very sharp images up to 11x14.

 

A wise man once said "ANY decent camera will give you a LOT more detail than a contact sheet is capable of resolving." I suspect shooting Reala 120 will produce some great portraits if processed correctly, high rez scanned, and post processed on the computer for color balance, contrast, and sharpness.

 

By the way, I love your mashed potatoes photo. GREAT FUN.

Boy, I feel like kind of an idiot all of a sudden. I took a look and indeed the lab is making the contact sheets with the negatives in the plastic sleeves. I can see the brand name of the sleeves on the edge of the contact sheet.

 

This makes total sense as to why they would appear soft if there's a barrier of foggy plastic between the paper and the negative.

 

It still concerns me a bit that they seeem softer at infinity focus then anything else but i can do some tests for that I suppose.

 

Thanks guys - you're all the best!!

First, by "soft" I assume you mean sharpness and not contrast.

 

You can argue about relative sharpness of Mamiya TLR lenses (and many do) but if you can see it in a contact print then I would suspect a defective lens, a problem with the mirror or focus screen or bad technique (vibration).

 

Some thoughts:

 

Inspect the 80mm to make sure the lens elements (front and rear) are properly and fully screwed into the mount

 

Use the distance scale for focusing

 

Try using a sturdy tripod to eliminate shaking from handholding

 

Exercise the shutter on the 65mm and, if it's reasonably usable, see if the results from that lens matches the 80

 

Make sure the back is set to the film you are using (120 or 220)

(i) I'll pile on and second the recommendation for a secure tripod. If you're shooting handheld at 1/125, critical sharpness isn't an option.

 

(ii) The Mamiya TLR lenses really need to be shaded, possibly even more so than other lenses. Try a hood, if your test shots were taken without one.

 

(iii) Somewhere on the Monaghan MF site is a quote that the very earliest Mamiya TLR lenses were engineered to a 'commercial formula', which I take to mean high contrast. At the time this caused complaints from high street photogs, who wanted a softer rendition for portraits and weddings. Mamiya ostensibly responded by tweaking the lens designs to accomodate this request.

 

Interesting tale, and I don't know whether it's true or not. It originated with one Bob Shell (remember him?), who may have had access to proprietary information.

Around here it's actually cheaper to get prints than a fuzzy "contact" sheet.

Alright guys, I went over to the neighbors house and did some scans of the images in question. Keep in mind these are scanned right off a contact sheet so mind the scratches and dust marks :-)

 

No photoshop sharpening was applied to either image.

 

http://www.absoluterealitystudios.com/livejournal/Kat01.jpg

 

The image above was focused at about four feet, f/11 I believe at about 125. I happy with this sharpness wise. It's about what I expected for a contact sheet.

 

http://www.absoluterealitystudios.com/livejournal/natalie01.jpg

 

Now this is what concerns me. Focused to infinity (which appeared crisp in the viewfinder) shot at f/22 and 250th of a second. I did have a tripid (not the sturdiest on earth) but this was 100 speed film.

 

The wood in that scene was very dry, contrasty, with tons of texture and it all seems to be lost due to a lack of sharpness (not contrast). This was taken on Ilford FP4.

 

http://www.absoluterealitystudios.com/livejournal/Laura01.jpg

 

Now two days later I'm back in the studio, focused at about 3 to 4 feet and there seems to be plenty of sharpness in that fan she's holding.

Andrew , I would do some tests. The shot outside should be sharp all the way though and it does appear to be front focused.Just a thought, I shot some film though a C330 but it was 25 yrs ago. Is it possable that the lens was not seated in the camera flush?This would not let the camera focus on infinity. You might have bumped it as well.I would do some more testing.Nice photos by the way.

You used the distance scale on the body for the infinity focus? These scales can sometimes be off (an alignment problem), and they aren't dead accurate anyway. Also, there can be sharpness problems caused by an upside down viewing screen, the front standard having jumped a "tooth" on the rail, a bent lens board and missing shims under the viewing screen. I've experienced all but the first and last. But I don't think any of that is your problem. It is probably one of the first two things I mentioned, and probably the "aren't dead accurate". The distance scale for my 55mm f4.5 was way, way off. Ended up making my own on the rubber focus accessory.

By the way, I have every lens except the 250mm. All of them are very sharp.

alrighty, I just scheduled the same outdoor shoot this friday with the same model at the same location at the same time.

 

I'm going to shoot one role with the 80mm and one with the 65mm and do a comparison.

 

I'll be sure to post the results!

In my experience with the system my black 80 is pretty sharp, but not the performer of the line in that department. My 65 and 105 lenses seem to be the real performers (both happen to be chrome if that matters), and i'll bet you notice that too when you shoot with your 65. Also consider getting the chimney finder with the 3.5 and 6x mag for focusing. Great accessory!

hey Everyone

 

First of all, thank you to everyone who has contriubuted advice. I'm very grateful such a great group of photographers exist out there :-)

 

I went outside this evening and decided to do some testing on my camera with both lenses. Paying close attention I noticed something right away. With either lens, when aiming at a very bright building extremely far off in the distance I have to extend the lens just a little bit for it to appear in crisp focus. Shouldn't the lens be flushed up against the body for infinity?

 

I'm getting the sinking feeling that my camera is front focusing just slightly. Looking at the second image I posted earlier this makes complete sense. When taking the image, the model appeared nice and sharp, but in the final results the folliage just in front of her is sharp. Of course I still need to do an appropriate field test but right now it seems like this is the case with both lenses.

 

When mounting both lenses they appear tight and flushed with the body so I don't think that's the problem. Could the viewing glass be out of adjustment? Any other ideas on how to correct this?

Each lens has its own infinity position. 55m, 65mm and 80mm are short draw lenses and they have the infinity position close to the back stop but not exactly there. The rest of lenses are long-draw lenses and they have infinity position pretty far forward.

 

I also agree with other people, that Mamiya TLR lenses need good lens hoods as they are only singlecoated and suffer from flare. They also have less contrast than say Mamiya RB67 C-series lenses (multicoated) and it may look as a softer picture.

You can go hyperfocal with those lenses by going by racking out the body against the stop. Don't be insulted here, but might want to check and make sure the pressure plate is on the right setting. I think you should you shoot a yardstick 4-5 ft away with a makeshift target at a location along it at with your longest lens wide open or close to it. I would think a focusing problem w/ the screen or lens pair maladjustment would be manifest at close range and exaggerated by the narrow DOF inherent when shooting closer up. I did this after 'cleaning' the screen on my C220. Took out the screws and the shims went bye-bye. It was a lot of work to get the screen shimmed right, but I used a makeshift yard stick rig with a tripod without tilting the camera and was able to establish the plane of focus relative to the target. I had trouble adjusting to focusing this system intially, (before I disassembled my screen!) and it all got better after I bought the chimney.

I have a C220 with the black lenses and they are very sharp. As noted above when focussing on the far distance the lens plate is not back gainst the stop, it is slightly forward of it. Check that the lens seating is clean and undamaged so that the lenses are parallel to the film plane.

I have the solution to your problem, one that does not involve messing with the lenses. So

Don't Touch Them, very very seldom are these Ever the culprit for the C330, and you'll just

go chasing your tail and making it worse and worse. Here it is....Its the foam surround

between the focus screen sub frame and the focus screen frame. HUH?! you say! What

Foam. Take off the focussing screen frame from the camera with the focus screen in place,

then look up under it. If you take off the screen, (two screws per side holding the clips in

place) you'll see the sub frame that the screen sits on. Two more screws per side releases

that sub frame, and then you'll see the foam, or rather whats left of it. This foam acts as a

spring to push the sub frame and screen down flush onto the three funny screws that sit

in the body next to the mirror. (Don't touch those either, those too are so seldom moved

most if not all are still in factroy set condition, leave them that way). Granted, the foam is

not much of a spring, and it's actually not really doing much anyway, EXCEPT when the

foam is old and sticky! Then it compresses a bit and sticks the sub frame With The Screen

ever so slightly away from those three funny screws, causing the focus shift. Its such a

small amount, and the pressure from the foam seems like too little, but that is it folks. I

know what I am talking about here, both my 2 C-330's had it, and every other old, seldom

used C-330 I've seen/ worked on (6-8 of them) had it. When I was shooting my first C

-330 constantly I sent it in soon after getting it to an old guy who was a camera assembly

tech in the Mamiya factory, and spent years building and working on them, and he tuned

up mine perfectly. A few year later the focus shift started up again and I tracked him

down, even though he had stopped repairing cameras, and he gave me that crucial fix. I

got my 2nd C-330 for very cheap when the seller thought the camera was broken, but

once again it was that foam issue. The sub frame can be removed and the old foam

cleaned off and you can cut small

strips of foam from the Micro-Tools foam kit, I like the thicker foam better. The tricky part

is making the small holes for the screws that need to go thru the foam, just shoving them

thru makes the foam uneven. Expect on replacing the foam every 2-4 years. Do this small

small fix First and then test before doing anything else, there still could be a chance

something else is off, like the mirror angle or (way Way out there) a loose lens cell, but 95

out of 100 its the foam! Thanks and good night.

<p>I've recently aquired a C330s and it seems really sharp to me. Here's an example from a Fuji Frontier scan (80mm Black lens) - the print resolution is clearly higher than the scan resolution , but I think it still shows sharpness.

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Full image:

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<a href=" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/66/193313456_3f30368d13_m.jpg" width="240" height="240" alt="Dad's garage - paint" /></a>

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"I know the Mamiya is no Rollei in terms of lens sharpness"

 

I've owned a Mamiya TLR and a few Rollei's including the fabled 3.5F. I also shoot a Canon 17MP 1Ds MkII with Image Stabilised lenses and a Phase One P25 digital back on a Hasselblad. I can absolutely vouch that some of the sharpest hand-held photographs I've ever taken were achieved with the Mamiya TLR and Delta 100 film.

 

In fact when it comes to delivering critical sharpness with a hand-held camera the only consistent rivals to a TLR have been a Mamiya 7 with slow film and a Hasselblad 903 SWC with a Phase One digital back, and they all share the common characteristic of great optics and no reflex mirror.

You can attempt to correct the placement of the viewing screen yourself...I usually just have the whole thing adjusted by my favorite repair person. You can compare the actual focus to the viewfinder focus by taking a piece of wax paper or make a "screen" with Scotch frosty tape and placing it over the film gate of the taking lens (back open). Using the viewfinder, focus on a target. Then, using a loupe held gently against the wax paper or screen, compare the actual focus (what the film will "see"). You can use shims under the viewing screen. You might try the previous foam replacement first, though. I've actually made a "roll of transluscent film" from two spools and tracing vellum, which works well in place of the wax paper, and it remains fairly taut, which helps when trying to use the loupe.

Also, you may need to use a cloth drape over your head to see anything on the wax paper screen, or do it in a darkened room.

I wish I'd thought of that Nadine when I botched mine up! That would definately settle the matter. I wouldn't touch your screen yet though. I still think if you had a screen, lens, or camera body problem the error would be grossly exaggerated at closer distances and fast aperatures, and your images demonstrate the opposite which makes me think you must have had the focus a tad off or miscalculated DOF when composing the tree nude image (which is great, BTW) or changed the focus inadvertently.