M7II 80mm F4 lens and Hyperfocal.

[romain_j.]

<p>Good evening everybody,<br>

I just bought a Mamiya 7II with the 80 F / 4. A very very beautiful object!<br>

I inquired to know the hyperfocal of the lens, without result. Some of you know it? I guess that's the technique that allows to have the best depth of field (including landscape).<br>

What is the best "focusing" on the lens (infinite ?) and what aperture you choose for the best results? <br>

Any instructions?<br>

Thank you for your answers.<br>

Romain</p>

[mark_denton1]

<p>Go to <a href="http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html">http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html</a> and plug in the relevent figures. The graphic at the bottom of the calculator will give you the HF info for the chosen aperture.</p>

<p>HTH</p>

[stuart_richardson]

<p>Focus on the most important subject. Hyperfocal focusing is just an estimate and a guideline, not a rule that "everything inside these ranges will be sharp". As you say you are planning to print 1.8m wide by 2.4m long, you are going to have much much more demanding depth of field requirements than most people, and you will need to have a much smaller hyperfocal area.<br>

Photography, like life, is about decisions! If you are taking a landscape, there will usually be an obvious element to focus on -- something closer to the camera than infinity like a rock, tree, house etc. The question you should ask yourself is "what is most important to have sharp in this image?" At infinity, these are often distant mountains, clouds etc -- these things might not need to be extremely sharp unless they are the only things in the image (or the main point of interest). You are better off choosing something in the middle or the foreground to focus on, as the focal point will carry behind further than it will be carry closer to the camera. But there is no magic formula (despite the hyperfocal tables) that will give you that information for every image. You need to make the logical leap and choose what are the most important components of the image and place the focus on them (or between them and stop down). Again, experience will do this better than hyperfocal tables, particularly if you are printing huge!<br>

Two examples:<br /> This was with the Mamiya 7II and 43mm:<br /> <img src="http://www.stuartrichardson.com/kvivik-view-farmer-gallery.jpg" alt="" /><br /> I focused on the man in the lower left, as he was the closest, most important point of interest. Because I was using a wide angle and stopped down a bit, depth of field carried the focus to the buildings in the distance, but in larger prints it is obvious that the grasses in the far right are not sharp. That was just a decision I had to make! I would rather have critical sharpness on the man and the background than on the grasses, as they are more important.</p>

<p>In this one (not the greatest photo, but a good example), I focused on the hole in the rock and shot wide open such that I could separate the rock a bit from the background, but still have enough detail to give context -- no so much blur as to have only the foreground in focus, but not stopped down so much as to make the composition appear flat with everything in focus. <br /> <img src="http://www.stuartrichardson.com/christine-djupavatn-024.jpg" alt="" /> <br /> You just need to think about what you want out of the image, and set the focus and aperture according to the best compromise you can make.</p>

[romain_j.]

<p>Hello Stuart, I really appreciate your detailed responses. I understand what you say.<br /><br />Not easy to focus on the man with a rangefinder camera! Could you just use hyperfocal, with good sharpness on the man as not?<br /><br />When I use my Canon 5D Mark II for landscapes, I noticed that the images do with the focus at infinity has F22 were worse than I did with the same settings to F11. Amazing is not it? It is this point that I find strange, I would not make the same mistake with M7II.<br /><br />Apparently with the 80mm F4, focus at 7m and F16 is a good setting (field depth of 3m40 to infinity). This kind of setting is alright ? for shooting landscapes or global scope (like your picture with the man).<br /><br />Again I am inquiring for maximum quality to the shot, you guessed it ;)</p>

[stuart_richardson]

<p>Hi Romain, </p>

<p>I think you should maybe try to read my post again. There is no hyperfocal setting that will work in all situations. You have to look at the scene you want to take and choose what is the most important, and then make your settings from there. In your example above, the area between 3.4m and infinity is not perfectly in focus, while 3.2m is suddenly blurry. If you focus at 7m, ONLY 7m is in focus. Everything other than 7m is out of focus, the farther from 7m it is, the more out of focus. It is more complex than just that, but that is the most important thing to remember for maximum image quality. Focus on what is most important to be sharp. </p>

<p>In the example with your 5DMk II, what you are experiencing is called diffraction. This is when the actual size of the hole the light is going through is scattering the light and getting in the way of the best image quality. For reasons I will not get into here, this is a bigger problem on smaller formats and digital cameras than on larger formats and film. You can shoot your Mamiya quite well at f/16 or f/22 (though it may be a bit sharper at f/11 at the focus point). It is all a balancing act -- if you really need everything from the camera to infinity to be as sharp as possible throughout that range, then shoot at the smallest f stop. BUT, even though something very close to the camera might be better resolved, things closer to the focus point would be softer than if you shot at f/11 or f/8. If you actually just need things from 4m to 20m as sharp as possible, then f/11 or f/8 might be a better choice. That is why I say it is better to set the focus point on the most important objects. </p>

<p>Here are two examples and how roughly to deal with them. </p>

<p>Let's say you want to take a photo like this one:</p>

<p><img src="http://www.stuartrichardson.com/hvalfjordur-bw1.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>It is better to focus on the buildings in the distance and stop down the lens to a medium aperture than it would be to focus at 7m and set f/16. Why? Because the things in the foreground are not important. It does not matter if every rock and ripple on the ocean is at maximum sharpness, and if you focused at 7m, the buildings in the distance which DO matter would not be as sharp as they would if you had just focused on them. So in this case if there is no other factors, it would be good to use something like f/11 which has a very high sharpness at the focus point and across the frame, as well as pretty good depth of field.</p>

<p>If you wanted to take a photo like this:</p>

<p><img src="http://www.stuartrichardson.com/vik-trucks.jpg" alt="" /> </p>

<p>It would be better to focus just on the first truck's closest headlight. This allows you to get sharpness at this most important point. This was shot at f/1.4 because the light was bad and it was handheld, but shooting at f/1.4 was also ok because the most interesting part of the photo, and the only part that needs to be sharp, is the first truck. Even though the rest is blurred, it is easy to tell what is going on and get a feel for the atmosphere -- it does not need to be sharp. </p>

<p>Each photo (and photographer) is too unique to simply say, "shoot at these settings and that is ok." If you don't know, you will need to experiment and figure out what works best for you! </p>

<p>I suggest you find a photographic textbook in your language and read up on how depth of field and diffraction work, it would really help you understand what is actually going on in the act of photography. </p>

[User_5888660]

<p>Romain, <br>

Perhaps this will help. I have found that the distance/aperture scale on the Mamiya 7II is a bit optimistic. When shooting, I will use one f-stop more than indicated by the scale. For example, if you set the infinity mark on f/16 and read the distance scale, everything from 3.5m to infinity should be in focus. If I actually want everything from 3.5m to infinity to appear in sharp focus on a normal size print, I would shoot at f/22. I have not really noticed any degradation of the image with the f/22 setting on the 80mm lens. (There is some at the smallest aperture on the 150 mm lens.)</p>

<p>Note, the "mark" for infinity is the middle of the loops, where they overlap. </p>

<p> </p>

[ondebanks]

<blockquote>

<p>When I use my Canon 5D Mark II for landscapes, I noticed that the images do with the focus at infinity has F22 were worse than I did with the same settings to F11. Amazing is not it? It is this point that I find strange, I would not make the same mistake with M7II.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Romain, that is not amazing, actually. At f/22, you are stopping down so much that the 5DII's pixels are considerably smaller than the f/22 diffraction spot size. The f/11 image is sharper simply because the diffraction spot size is half of the size of the f/22 spot. In fact f/11 is about optimal for the 5DII.</p>

<p>This is one of the biggest "gotchas" in photography - the tradeoff between DOF and diffraction. Using a smaller aperture produces greater DOF, but at some point diffraction starts to become noticeable and further stopping down actually degrades sharpness, initially on the subject in focus, and then on the areas which fall within the DOF range.</p>

<p>This why there are tilt lenses for the Canon and other cameras. Tilting the plane of focus means you can get near and far objects into focus, without stopping down the aperture as much.</p>

 

[western_isles]

<p>I have been using the Mamiya 7 for a long time and tend to use f16 on the 80mm lens for landscape work. I also use a tripod all the time on the Mamiya 7 and on other cameras. <br>

The general consensus seems to be not to put too much trust in the depth of field table on the lens barrel and this seems to apply to all Mamiya 7 lens.<br>

Be patient and take your time, you have a fine camera which you should enjoy using. </p>

 

[david_henderson]

<p>I think you should take the advice to focus on the element of your picture that you think its most important to deliver sharply. There are theorectical aspects of this advice but there are practical reasons too , such as</p>

<ul>

<li>It's mentioned a couple of times here that the lens barrel markings on a Mamiya 7 are optimistic, and thats right. If you're planning to make medium sized or bigger prints , or project slides, then I'd suggest along with lots of others (search the forums) that you use the lens markings for at least two full stops larger aperture than you have set</li>

<li>The 80mm lens is small and the distance scale and lens barrel markings are both quite compressed. Its going to be quite difficult in many cases to actually set the hyperfocal distance accurately and of course there is no means to tell ttl whether you have it right.</li>

</ul>

<p>And then there's this. There is no single way of focussing a camera which is right for all eventualities. Focussing is not a mechanical task; its a decision with creative intent and consequences. Hyperfocal focussing may give you the widest band of distance that will appear "sharp" . The reason I put "sharp" in quotation marks is that in reality "sharp" is not one thing and there are degrees of "sharp" within your dof. Only one distance is as sharp as you can get it, and with hyperfocal focus it is entirely possible that you are wasting the point of maximum sharpness on something unimportant, or even in the ether between two objects. Sometimes that will be the right solution. Most times though you will want to realise the sharpness potential of this lens that you have bought , expensively, because it is capable of great sharpness. You didn't buy this camera/lens because it has great dof, and in reality if you're coming from a Canon 5D then it will have significantly less dof than you are used to. So, I'd suggest, don't waste the maximum sharpness, and don't put your photographs at risk by setting your point of focus imprecisely when you have limited depth of field.</p>

[paul.droluk]

<p>There is a solution to your quest, and that is to use a camera that allows control of the focus plane. This is why large format cameras have been, and remain, the very best tool for landscape photography. In all of the examples shown above, a simple adjustment in the plane of focus could have rendered fore and aft subject matter with equally sharp results.</p>

<p>Additionally, by changing the focus plane to match the subject you are able to shoot at larger apertures where most lenses perform at their best. Chris Perez tests of the Mamiya 80mm clearly indicate it performs best at f5.6, with resolution dropping by half when stopped down to f22!</p>

<p>http://www.hevanet.com/cperez//test/fourcameras.html</p>

[romain_j.]

<p>Thank you for your reply, it was what I ask as a question.<br />So for better, we need to focus on areas that are considered important in the image, but make the F22 is not the best solution. I will get better results with this way of doing things, rather than relying on the hyperfocal then.<br /><br />But what is the best solution when my subject is precisely to infinity? Make the focus on infinity and shot at F8 or F11.<br /><br />@ Paul: The test is really interesting, it also concludes that the M7II is the best. I am French so some data beyond me. What should we understand the following table, which means the data in bold:<br /><br />Mamiya 7<br />80mm L<br /><strong>120 120 60</strong> f / 4<br /><strong>120 120 68</strong> f5.6<br /><strong>120 107 68</strong> f / 8<br /><strong>107 107 76</strong> f/11<br /><strong>76 76 68</strong> f/16<br /><strong>60 60 60</strong> f/22<br /><br />If I understand the rule, when the diaphragm is smaller (depth of field is small too, of course) the performance of the lense is more sharpness?! This rule works for all focusing distances?<br>

Thanks for the help.</p>

[romain_j.]

<p>Dear,<br />I return to the topic with this simple question.<br>

<br />The lenses of the Mamiya 7II suffer from the problem of diffraction (conclusion of another post: F8 F11 are the best, after the quality goes down considerably).<br>

<br />On lenses designed for Horsmann or other 120 camera using LF lenses (Schneider / rodenstrock) the diffraction is less important to F16/F22, given the nature of the objective? or remains the same? <br>

<br />The Schneider/Rodenstock lenses are they more resistant to diffraction than the Mamiya 80 F4 lenses?<br>

<br />I hope my question was clear.Thank you for comment.<br>

Roman</p>

[michael_josefsson]

<p>Diffraction is an effect of the aperture circle (diameter measured in millimeters) and wavelength of light, and not the f-stop-number in itself. But for a smaller negative size (e.g. 135 film) the aperture's diameter approaches small values at, say, f/22. For a 4x5" camera even an aperture of f/32 does not reach this small diameter, and, consequently does not suffer from diffraction in the same manner. So, in general, larger negative sizes can be stopped down a great deal more without diffraction rearing its ugly head.<br>

No lens can be more or less "resistant" to diffraction as it is an effect of aperture diameter and wavelength (a law by nature). In a way, larger negative sizes /are/ more "resistant" by the same reasoning.</p>