Rook Mamiya question

[mag_miksch]

A wedding photographer in my town offered me one of his old Mamiya

RB67 including a 65/4.5 lense. As I?m interested I took it with me to

do some test shots but now to my shame I cannot see how to proper use

the lense to get maximum DOF. Normally I shoot landscapes with Nikon

manual focuss, its easy to set DOF according the lines on the lense.

I`m pretty shure this can be easy done with RB 67 too, but I dont see

how to set hyperfocus not to run to much into infinity with DOF. I

see there is a ring at the front side, its not to set time and not to

set aperture, its a kind of DOF table as I understand, but how to set

hyperfocus according this information.

 

And beside this, I have no knowledge about Mamiya and the lenses,

I just find out that there is a newer 65mm/f4 lense, how does this

compare to the offered 4.5? Reading in this forum I also found out,

that it seems to me some RB 67 have mirror lock up and some not, how

can I check this?

 

Thanks and Kind Regards

 

Martin

[martin_jangowski]

On the side of the camera is a scale with curves for all focal length, use this to get a measurement of the distance. Use the ring to get the correct hyperfocal distance and adjust bellow draw with the scale on the side.

 

All RB67 have mirror lockup, you have to turn the knob at the lens and use a double cable release for body and lens. Don't forget to turn the knob back after using the MLU, without it the trigger at the body will release it (mirror goes up), but the shutter won't fire, leaving blank film.

 

Martin

[mag_miksch]

Martin,

I see the scale but dont get the trick^^

[martin_jangowski]

There is no big trick. IIRC (I haven't used this scale for years) you use the curve for your focal length and determine distance with the gradation on the scale. It is much easier done than said. The Mamiya RB instruction found <a href="http://www.mamiya.com/assets/pdfs/6x7/RB67_Pro-S_v7.PDF">here</a> show the thing at page 23.<p>

Martin

[terry_stedman]

That thing is really confusion until you realize that its just an indicator of what you have in focus at the moment. Play with it for five minutes and you'll understand. All the lines are the different lenses, from 360 to 60. As you move the bellows out, you math the line for your lens with the scale - in meters and feet - on the body right next to it. its not to useful with the 50 or 65 lenses since those lenses have such steep curves on the plate, but if you look at the 127 lens line, it gives a good example. Theres a ruler on the top of the plate with milimeters. Move the bellows 10 milimeters from the body. The 127 line will be at right about 6 feet. That means that an obect 6 feet away is in focus. If you move the bellows out to 20mm from the body, the 127 line is at 3.5 feet, so again an object 3.5 feet away would be in focus. This is really just the same as what is on the lenses of most other cameras, which have a little thing next to the focusing ring that shows what distance is in focus. However, since RB lenses don't have a focusing ring, they don't have it; instead, the focusing is done with the bellows, which is on the body, and thats where the focusing meter (or whatever you want to call it) is.

 

If anybody out there can tell me what the "step" thing at the bottom is, I'd be grateful. Do they mean "stop"? as in, the exposure correction for bellows length?

[mag_miksch]

Martin,

 

thank you very much, just got the manual and had a short look and got it^^

 

I didnt see a RB 67 before, a real nice body; its the missing link between my Graflex "Baby" Speed Graphic and my SLRs.

 

Thanks for friendly help

 

Martin