Want to buy a medium format camera but need advice

[aoelckers]

Lately I've been considering buying a medium format camera. I'm

still somewhat of a beginner and have a lot to learn about

photography, but at the same time I'm very picky about quality.

I've had enlargements made from 35mm film, up to 18"x12", and while

the film grain isn't to bad, it becomes slightly noticable. It's

even more noticable in film scans. I would love to have the ability

to have larger and more detailed enlargements made.

 

I've done quite a bit of looking into medium format cameras online,

and from what I can tell, I would like to get maybe a 6x7. I'm

hoping to maximize the negative size as much as possible for large

detailed prints, so I would prefer this over something smaller such

as a 6x6. I keep finding myself going back to the Mamiya and Pentax

websites, and looking at their cameras. If anyone owns or has used

a Mamiya or Pentax medium format camera, or has any other

recommendations, please respond. Are there any issues with medium

format photography that I should know about? Is having

interchangable backs like on the Mamiya worth having? Oh yeah, and

whats the "prism" I keep reading about on the Pentax?

 

I would appriciate any suggestions or opinions. Thanks.

 

Aaron

[paul_frank]

what kind of photography do you do? one big difference I found between medium and 35mm formats is the depth of field. a wideangle is not a wideangle is not a wideangle. I was used to being able to keep everything from ~ a foot to infinity in focus with a 24mm lens. The equivalent lens in 6x7 is ~ 50mm. at that focal length, the closest you can focus and keep infinity in focus as well is about 4 feet. that wasn't good enough for me so I went to large format. also, expecially with pentax, you may need a bigger tripod than what you have. the pentax 67 requires a big tripod to get you sharp pictures in the 1/30th - 1sec range. your technique has to be impeccable, but if it is, and you don't need really extreme depth of field, 67 (and pentax) is a great way to go.

 

the prism that you are used to on a 35mm slr does not come with the pentax67 body. you have to buy that seperately. there are two to choose from - one has a meter, one does not.

[art_haykin]

If you want the maximum quality in large prints, go to a 6x9, or better still, a 4x5, but a good 6x7 should do it.

[aoelckers]

So far I've done a lot of landscapes, also experimented with macro. I'd like the freedom to do all types, portraits, landscape, macro, and everything in between.

[art_haykin]

"And everything in between." Then you should consider a 6x9 at least, and a gaggle of lenses.

[robert_potts1]

I like 6x7 because it is versatile. It can be cropped down to square or 6x4.5 in either orientation which is handy for publication purposes and for saving flawed images. I have Pentax 67 and a Mamiya 7II which is a rangefinder. The Pentax is a bear to use, but produces images of the highest quality once mastered. You want an SLR for its versatility, but the rangefinder is absurdly easy to use, weighs nothing, works on the slightest of tripods, and produces landscapes that are excellent. If you were made of money you might want both. The Pentax is not a relatively expensive system. Somewhere down the road though, you might look for a bargain in a used rangefinder to use as a second camera. You'll know what I mean after lugging around a magnum tripod and a Pentax body with several heavy lenses over a few miles of landscape.

[mel_brown1]

"I'd like the freedom to do all types, portraits, landscape, macro, and everything in between."

 

One of the problems with MF is that there is no one camera that is best for all those tasks. But you have taken a large first step by choosing 6x7 as your format. That eliminates a sizeable portion of the contenders and makes a considered choice possible. When I was facing the same decisions, I unsuccessfully juggled all the variables of MF gear, trying to find the one that best suited me. It was a frustrating several months until I decided on the 6x7 format. That cleared the field, and the rest was easy.

 

The Mamiya RB67, with its rotating back, is king of the studio. However, many find it a bit heavy to carry on a hiking trip. The RZ is, at least in theory, capable of closer macro shots (a bellows is available for it, while the RB is limited to two extension tubes).

 

The Pentax 67, shaped like a 35mm, is a different beast altogether. It's lighter and easier to handle, but has no interchangeable backs to allow mid-roll swapping of film types. You may want that feature for both landscape and portrait work. It's also noisier than the RB and is well-known for its vibration. Some maintain that most of the vibration occurs after the shutter closes and does not contribute to blurry photos. Still, if you choose this one, I suggest you beware of early models that lack the mirror lock-up feature.

 

On either camera, a prism allows eye-level framing, a la 35mm. Very handy to say the least.

 

Another brand you should consider is the Rapid Omega 200, 100, or M. These rangefinder 6x7s are compact, relatively light, have superb optics, interchangeable lenses and backs, are extremely rugged, and can be had for less than $250. That may be cheap enough for you to justify one just for landscape work. Its biggest drawback is that none of its four available lenses can focus close enough for a tight head and shoulders shot. Macro work, of course, is out of the question. Don't be put off by the innate ugliness of the thing; it more than compensates with its surprisingly ergonomic design.

 

Any of those three, within its limitations, will serve you well. To learn more about MF, be sure to visit: http://people.smu.edu/rmonagha/mf/index.html. Pack your lunch, because you'll spend hours there availing yourself of the vast amount of information on the site.

 

Don't be troubled by the smaller depth of field offered by MF. First, it's determined by physics, so there's nothing you can do about it, short of using a faster film and stopping down. Second, you can turn it to your advantage because selective focus becomes easier to achieve at smaller apertures. Very nice for outdoor portraits.

 

Whatever your final choice, be sure to budget for a spot meter, a very sturdy tripod, a cable release, and a good lens shade. It would be pointless to compromise the quality you seek by failing to use those items.

 

Choosing and using MF gear can be an onerous task, but it's worth all the trouble when the quality of your first 24x30 or 30x40 print pops out at you and puts a big smile on your face.

[andrew_schank]

The 645 size is a minor compromize in quality over the larger roll film sizes, and is still capable of exceptional 16 X 20 to 24 X 30 enlargements if you have good optics. The Pentax 645 handles nearly like a 35mm camera,(and is perfectly hand holdable as well) but the difference in grain and color saturation is readily apparant in even 8X10 enlargements. I have owned cameras in all the different 120 formats, and I still prefer 645 for every day use, so don't rule it out as it may be the most camera for the money to accomplish what you are after. Carry a 6X7 SLR system around for a full day and see if you are still interested in traveling with one afterwards!

[squareframe]

you asked for suggestions and opinions, so let me tell you what best to do. I am not trivializing your post, as I know what you are facing and the level of consternation you are dealing with. pour a hot bath. light candles, pour the wine. close your eyes. lay back and think of your favourite images. the images that hit you in the stomach or made your heart skip a beat. now, think about the light you wish to capture. think about the images you want to make. what format do you see? where do you see yourself? it's a magic carpet Aaron. in which direction does it take you? it's more than grain ... it's about how you see and feel.

[aoelckers]

Wow... there's no easy answer for this is there? First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time to respond. I think what I'll end up doing is trying to find a place nearby that has the cameras I'm looking into getting available for rent.

 

The whole rangefinder thing threw me for a big curve. I guess I assumed the Mamiya is an SLR. I still don't really understand how a rangefinder truely works after reading up a little on it. I don't know if it sacrafices quality or what kind of shots you can take, and I guess when I say quality, it is really relative to the photographer and what they are trying to achieve.

 

I think right now I'm leaning toward the Pentax 6x7, because it seems to resemble a 35mm SLR the closest. I just checked out the lenses available, and it has a very good selection. Even if it is heavier, and more to lug around, I think I can put up with it for the quality of the final output and range of lenses available. Of course I'll have to see if I can find one for rent before spending so much money on a camera.

 

If anyone has more suggestions or comments, please do post. Thanks again for everyones help.

 

Aaron

[david_chilvers]

High Aaron

 

It`s a mine field and thats for sure. Thats why so many of the members of this group own several cameras because it`s horses for courses.

 

I own an RZ, heavy but not too bad ( you need to use it in the studio where you will find it excellent with the bellows focusing and the superb waste level viewing) I use mine in the field but need to know where I`m going and what i want before i set off and park as near as you can and then I use it at waste level with the weight taken on the strap around your neck or sat on your knee and use a cable release to lock up the mirror just before you fire the shutter. Results on a tripod with mirror up are superb. A true system camera.

I own a Bronica RF645 which can be easily hidden under your walking jacket( body only) i keep the 65mm in one pocket and the 45mm in the other. 16 shots per roll and excellent lenses.( I used to use Lieca M6 so find rangefinders easy to use)the viewfinder certainly aint a Lieca and thats for sure but it does give you good results and enlargements from an easy to carry and easy to hide camera.

I have a Mamiya 645 but to be honest I rarely use it now days because I will go the extra mile and carry the RZ for the extra neg size when using this type of SLR.

I have owned many MF cameras( and this is just my view)

The Pentax 6x7 ( I tried two)needs a tripod to get sharp pictures.

Rollie 6008 good camera but to be quite honest to get the best lenses costs an arm and a leg and the 6x6 drops you back to 645 when cropped.

Bronica ETRS Had in my early days and was good but again 645 although good falls behind 6x7.

Hassy Needed tripod to get sharp results, view finder dark and again when cropped gave 645 images.Lenses expensive.Image quality perfect when tripoded and match the best Lieca M lenses but with enlargebility.

RB67 not as versatile as RZ and handheld not as sharp as RZ.

Mamiya 6 Neat camera and reliable but in those days nothing to write home to mum about plus 645 when cropped.

Various Mamiya 330`s, Pentagon 6`s All good fun in my learning days but limiting with regards to close focus etc.

 

I tried a Mamiya 7 11 at focus this year and to be quite honest I think i should have brought this camera instead of the RF645, the viewfinder is very close to the Lieca and the shutter is silky smooth and silent plus it felt just right in the hand and it isn`t a lot larger than the RF645 and is the full 6x7.

 

So I might sell the RF645 and the Mamiya 645 and land up with the RZ for studio and serious field work and get a M7 11 for travel and walkabouts(the body is small enough to hide under jacket and the lenses are small enough to keep in side pockets)

 

Thats my opinions and only my opinions and I now own a 130bhp Golf diesel instead of Audi`s cos I`m semiretired and would rather have more cash available for my photography.

Please don`t come back at me for my views on some cameras cos to be honest they are all good in there own ways, they just do it in different ways. It`s exciting times chosing your system, enjoy.

I daren`t look into 5x4 or 10x8 cos i know i could get hooked on the quality and the Golf would have to go for a bicycle :-)

 

Dave C

[david_henderson]

The answer to your question is really determined by the size and number of prints you want to produce and how you intend to have them made. I'm not surprised that you're unhappy with what you get at 18" x 12" from a 35mm original if you're using conventional (analogue) printing techniques, but on the other hand if you paid for a drum scan and LightJet prints you ought to be able to get very sound 18" x 12" from a quality 35mm original. The problem here is that they tend to be expensive for one-off prints. However if what you want is a dozen or so fine prints a year, and you're happy with the aspect ratio of 35mm, then there's a way of avoiding or deferring the investment.

 

On the other hand, if you want prints much bigger than 18" x 12"; if you intend to scan at home with anything but a real top-end scanner; if you'd prefer analogue prints to digital prints; then your're right to think MF. Not least you'll find that the bigger viewfinder can transform your photography. The format you should consider again depends on the size of prints and how you're going to make them. If you're going to use analogue printing and you sometimes want prints bigger than about 20" x 16" then you're right to think 67. I use 6x6 and until I started having my work printed digitally I wasn't happy with prints bigger than 18" square and indeed you need a very good neg or transparency to get even that far, and to my mind the real size horizon on 645 is about 16" x 12" - stretching up a size for an exceptional original. Again though if you're going to do (or pay for) very high resolution scans and print on a LightJet, you could use 645 originals up to 20" x 30" with no problems. If all this sounds just too close to the edge of what you need then you probably do need a 67 - or bigger.

 

The prism you refer to relects the fact that many medium format SLR cameras use waist-level viewfinders which give a laterally reversed image (right way up, but wrong way round). If you want to correct this then you need a prism viewfinder which is pretty much the same as you have on 35mm SLR's except they're an accessory not integral. Prisms MAY also contain a metering device. Some MF SLR's come with an integral prism and metering (eg Pentax 645N). Actually things are a tiny bit more complicated than I've described them, but I hope I'm getting the central idea across OK.

 

A word about MF rangefinders. They're small, light and neat, handholdable down to about 1/15th and have great lenses. They have many strengths and I use a Mamiya 7II to complement my MF SLR's, as a previous poster indicates. It takes me places where I couldn't really use my Bronica easily. But they have limitations which mean it's hard to use them for certain types of photography. You can't get really long lenses for them; the lenses tend not to focus very close which makes close -ups a problem; they are not TTL which means that what you see in the viewfinder isn't as close to what you get as with an SLR; focussing is different ( some people find it easy, others don't); You can't see the effect of filters in the viewfinder which makes using a polariser a little fiddly and using ND grads very difficult. You ca'nt see depth of field at all. So whilst I'm really pleased I have the Mamiya 7 (and by the way Mamiya makes SLR's as well as rangefinders) I also tend to view it as a complement to a SLR and I'm pleased it's not my only camera.

 

Best of luck. The upside is that pretty much all mainstream MF systems are capable of producing very fine images.

[johan_erasmus]

The 6X7 format has a huge advantage in that it is simply easier to scan than any of the smaller formats. Consider that printmaking is going to become ever more digital as time passes.

 

Having said that, as always you are not buying a camera but a system. When you need additional capability (shift, macro etc), you will want to add that capability onto your existing system, not buy a new camera.

 

In my experience Mamiya 645 costs as little as a third of RB67 and is a lot more available on the used market. Scanners are getting better for the same price all the time. In addition a practical, usable, affordable digital back is going to be available for 645 long before 6X7.

[garvey_p]

Before spending any money, get the camera in your hands! Why make a major purchase based only on "virtual" information from the WWW? Until you get the camera(s) in your hands, you can only learn so much. Specs and anecdotes are much different that physical ergonomics. I was all set to buy a Mamiya 645E until I actually saw it in person. I couldn't read the meter. Glad I saw that first, or I'd have spent $1000+ on something I'd have hated.

 

Garvey

[dick roadnight cotswolds]

MF SLRs are not very cost effective for landscapes.

 

Rangefinders and TLRs are a pain.

 

You best bet is a something like a 6x9, 6x12 view camera: they are light and cheap (especially 2nd hand) and good ones give you tilt and shift for perspective and focus control.

 

See my thread old\formats\which good folder.

 

I ended up keeping my Flexbody for portability, and buying a second hand Sinar.

 

Then I am going to cheat by using an adaptor so that I can put a Hasselblad 555 ELD (or magasine) on the back of it, and, using the lens board auto-shutter and a double cable release, I hope to have my cake and eat it, with the movements of a view camera and the speed of operation of a MD MF SLR: this should be very handy for the studio work I have comming up, but not justifyable for landscape work.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Dick,

 

You wrote: "Then I am going to cheat by using an adaptor so that I can put a Hasselblad 555 ELD (or magasine) on the back of it, and, using the lens board auto-shutter and a double cable release, I hope to have my cake and eat it, with the movements of a view camera and the speed of operation of a MD MF SLR"

 

Alas, you can't have your cake and eat it. :-(

 

Putting a Hasselblad body between Sinar P and film will seriously limit the amount of tilt you can use. The narrow ELD body will produce some nice vignetting.

 

You can indeed get an adapter to put a Hasselblad 6x6 magazine on the back of the Sinar, but i feel the better option is to get some 6x9 (or perhaps even larger format) roll film backs and use them instead. More format (at least in my book) is always better, especially if it doesn't mean more awkward equipment. And in this case it doesn't. ;-)

[dick roadnight cotswolds]

Thanks, QG:

 

Surely shift will produce more vingnetting than tilt, and the Hasselblad body would prevent me using the 47 and 90mm lenses on the Sinar... which is why I have ordered the Hasselblad magazine adaptor as well as the camera adaptor. I already have 6x9, 6x12 and 5x4 polaroid backs for it.

 

More format (at least in my book) is always better, but I would like to project the transparencies, and do not have a projector larger than 7x7 for 6x6 and when taking hundreds of (antique silver) catalog shots, film cost becomes significent - using an A16 back would reduce film cost and vingnetting.

 

6x9 is the largest format I can scan in one hit with my Pola sprintscan 120.

[mark_hubbard]

Aaron,

 

You've already received so many excellent and informative responses that I'm going to limit mine to suggesting that you find as many books as possible of the types of photography that *you* consider outstanding, and find out what cameras these photographers used.

 

Personally, I gave up on landscapes long ago, after realizing that the only landscape photographs I find truly great are made with large format view cameras, with negatives (or reversals) ranging in size from a *minimum* of 4x5 inches to 8x10 inches and larger. I easily see the differences, even in reproductions in books. Medium format will not give you large format quality.

 

Mark H.

[mark_hubbard]

My favorite example of mis-information was published by Kodak in the mid-1980s. Their photography handbook (for the general public) claimed there were three quality levels in photography that a person could access: the Kodak "disc" camera (with a negative as small or smaller than 110 film); point-and-shoot 35mm cameras; and "professional quality" 35mm SLRs -- the highest possible level of photographic quality.

 

When I turned to Kodak's chapter on landscape photography, I noticed the examples included Cole Weston's color photograph of the Big Sur coast that was used as the dust jacket illustration of "Not Man Apart" -- although the Kodak book made no mention of it, I knew from the previous publication that it had been taken by Weston with an 11 x 14 view camera!

 

Another bit of revelation for me was seeing the Ansel Adams retrospective at the de Young Museum in San Francisco about 12 years ago. Included in the exhibit were "straight prints" of Adams' greatest photos: they were as boring and uniformly "grey" as all of the black and whites I've taken. Ninety percent of what was "great" about Ansel Adams prints happened in his darkroom.

 

Medium format photography is wonderful and exhilarating, but it does not provide a one-camera solution to all photography needs. If you focus on the things that medium format does exceedingly well, you won't be disappointed.

 

Mark Hubbard

Eureka, CA

[aoelckers]

After more research, and reading the comments here, and talking to some people online, I think it's now between the Mamiya RB67 and the Pentax 67 (not sure which model of each, wether it be newer or older, but I should problably try and go used to save some money). Last night I was talking to a couple people who suggested the Mamiya RB. I looked into it more and it looked like a great camera, so I was pretty excited. I just now looked up the prices of the lenses.... now I'm rethinking the Mamiya. Expensive lenses! The Pentax lenses seem to be a lot cheaper. Then again, maybe I'll get lucky and find a package with the camera and lenses all used for a good price. Anyone have any more thoughts on either cameras?

 

Thanks,

 

Aaron

[scott walton]

Aaron, As far as the RB vs. Pentax goes, I use the RB on a daily basis. It is a great camera and very vesatile. Keep in mind that with the RB, you can use any shutter speed when using flash and with the Pentax, at least the older versions 1/30 is your synch speed. Could be a limiting factor as far as syncro sun goes!

[dick roadnight cotswolds]

On http://Teamworkphoto.com I stumbled on some details of the FUJI GX680III system, which is a 6x8cm rollfilm view camera. Wista also make articulating camera systems.

[mikolaip]

My thought about the beauty of RB is that it has a revolving back. So your camera rests upright on the tripod and you can easily switch from vertical to horizontal framing without swinging this big "tank" around, crouching etc., all controls and levers and scales are always in the same position, operation is more intuitive (I've played with an RZ which is basically the same thing w/respect to issues we discuss). Decide if you like the waist level finder. If you like it (I do) then your tripod can be lower, i.e. a smaller model or you don't have to extend the lower leg sections and thus gain rigidity.

 

It's about ergonomics and "feel", too. I personally like the idea of my MF camera being different than my 35mm SLR. Some other people would like MF to look and operate like an "overgrown brother" of their 35mm body. It's for you to decide.