Pentax 6x7 MU body w many lenses, accessories. Should I sell or keep it?

[thakurdalipsingh]

<p>Pentax 6x7 MU body w many lenses, accessories. Should I sell or keep it?<br>

I have Pentax 6x7 Mirror up body with many lenses and accessories. Should I sell it or keep it? If keep then for what? As film era is over, even processing labs difficult to find.<br>

Since the introduction of digital I am not using this equipment. I have 6x7 to 645 adapter also. Earlier I thought I will use these lenses on Pentax 645 Digital body with adapter. Now, some people say these lenses are not perfect good for latest digital 645, for which I should buy new lenses. I have not bought 645 Digital body yet and do not know weather I will buy it or not. As Nikon D800 has 36MP is there I am rethinking do I really need 645 body and lenses? When Nikon cameras are giving big enlargements and very good versatility then do I need medium format really? Where lens range and everything else is limited when compared to 35mm?<br>

I normally shoot wildlife and landscapes for my hobby, no studio or commercial.<br>

Pentax 6x7 MU body S No…..<br>

F4, 45mm lens<br>

F2.5, 105mm<br>

F4, 135mm Macro<br>

F4, 200mm<br>

F4, 600mm Tele<br>

Vivitar Teleconverter 2x<br>

Extension tubes set of 2 outer<br>

Extension tubes set of 3 inner<br>

67mm skylight filter original Pentax bayonet<br>

Wooden Handle<br>

Quick Focus lever<br>

Battery holder for warm batt.keeping with long cable<br>

Pl see=<br>

landscapesofindia.com<br>

birdsofindia.com </p>

<div></div>

[stp]

<p>If you're not using it, and if you don't know what you would do with it if you continued to keep it, why are you having difficulty making this decision? There are people who would love to have and use this equipment, including those who have the Pentax 645D. You should find them (try apug.org for non-digital users; for them, the film era is not over) and sell your equipment, piece by piece, to them. My $0.02.</p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>buy a ten pack of film be happy</p>

[d_purdy]

<p>Sell it. A lot of people would love to have that system. Don't keep it hidden away in your closet.</p>

[scott_marcellus1]

Do you normally shoot in B&W or color? If B&W, hang onto it and process the film youself. You could do some interesting

compressed landscapes with the 600/4 in B&W. That lens is not particularly well suited for any digital body because of the

excessive CA, which is typical for super-teles before ED glass and Flourite.

[steve_rasmussen]

<p>If you were a pro with this camera, your customers would force you to submit digital images in most cases. Since you are not a pro, this is not an issue. There are plenty of labs that will develop film but you may need to mail it off to get it done. I still use mine professionally but have to scan my film to make most sales. It is not about capture type, it is about your ability.</p>

<p>Regarding the 600mm Takumar; yes it has severe CA at f/4 but drops off quickly after f/8 and is quite usable from f/13 to f/45. This difference in color correction by lens zone is known as spherochromatism.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>It's a very personal decision. Shooting with digital and with film are two different experiences, as you know, given the presence of your dual equipment. When you are not able to see the result right away you have to work a bit harder to achieve your vision, I think. I may be exaggerating, but it is almost bordering on a mystical experience (I certainly feel that a bit when shooting B&W infrared film, or when I play with differential focussing with colour or B&W), and you place hope in the as yet to be viewed result. Of course, one can pursue the methodical approach as well with digital photography. If you shoot B&W as well, a film body is useful, as you can go to darkroom processing and reap the fine quality of the silver or platinum print (chemical smells are a thing of the past, in most cases, and crafting an image is satisfying).</p>

<p>I read recently, I think in the American review, "Photo Techniques", that there are more brands of B&W film on the market today than in 1990, an essentially pre digital era. "View Camera" magazines does reviews of traditional B&W printing papers and state of the art inkjet printing techniques, and I seem to remember recently seeing many types of silver based papers still being marketed. Yes, it requires a bit of footwork or Internet perusing to locate films, papers, processing centres, but they are there, and likely also in India. </p>

<p>In the final analysis, it depends what you are happy with. I have upgraded both my digital and film equipment in recent years, but have to fight my seeking the most recent camera for the sake of a few million more pixels or a slightly increased dynamic range, and I do not worry about extra high ISO performance in the higher quality equipment. The human variability in the use of the instrument makes as much or more difference to the result, when the differences in specifications are relatively small.</p>

[rickbehl]

<p>That's a great setup you got there! I also have a Pentax 67II set up with a few lenses and it is still my main equipment for landscape and nature work. Although everyone has their own opinion about it I actually think the quality of well exposed and developed film has something which digital still cannot quite replicate especially if shooting on transparency. Although with enough tweaking in post-processing you can get a 'filmic' look I'd rather spend my time out in the field making images than sitting behind a computer trying to improve them after the event...</p>

<p>I know some digital folk will disagree with the above but this is just my own feeling... So for now I am happy to continue using my 67 and even buy new lenses (such as the 2 fantastic zooms) to improve my photography. Of course if photography is your day job then the above argument does not really hold as in this case you do really need to make sure you nail your shots at the end of the day in order to 'keep the lights on' so I would be more likely to switch to digital...</p>

<p>Rick</p>

[pjdilip]

<p>Hi Thakur sahab,<br>

Are you in Delhi? I'm looking to start a 67 system myself...maybe you could contact me if you are really intending to offload your stuff!</p>

[donbright]

<p>Thakur, I continue to use my Pentax 67II after 14 years, and yet to have a CLA done to it, so I'm bringing it in for a CLA even though there's nothing wrong with it. I love the Pentax 67II and what it can do. You said, the film era is over? I hadn't heard that, there are still, and will be film available for the artisans, and non-professionals, meaning Wedding Photographers. If you do Weddings than by all means go digital, but if your interested in creating images that have a certain patina look and feel, there are plenty of films out that will allow you to dial in your mood for the day. What I would do is, expose a transparency as best as you can, view it on a well lit light table, then decide. I'm betting you'll hang on to the 6x7.</p>

[ondebanks]

<blockquote>

<p>Regarding the 600mm Takumar; yes it has severe CA at f/4 but drops off quickly after f/8 and is quite usable from f/13 to f/45. This difference in color correction by lens zone is known as spherochromatism.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Steve, there is some spherochromatism effect with any large refractive lens, but I don't believe it is the main reason why the CA is bad wide open and much less noticeable when well stopped down.</p>

<p>Spherochromatism can be explained:<br>

- Spherical aberration means that different zones of the optic focus a given wavelength of light at different positions, i.e. different focal lengths by zone<br>

- Spherical correction can correct all zones to the same focal length - for that wavelength.<br>

That's the end of the story for a fully-reflecting optic like several telescope designs - all wavelengths behave the same.<br>

But in a refractive lens:<br>

- Separately, chromatic aberration is also focusing different wavelengths to a whole other set of different positions, i.e. different focal lengths by colour<br>

- Spherical correction cannot cope with this additional dependency. The spherical or zonal correction is only complete for one selected colour/wavelength. The other colours are only partially corrected for their spherical/zonal aberration. This residual error, leaving a degree of <em>spherical </em>aberration which varies with colour, is spherochromatism, a 2nd order effect. Spherochromatism causes unsharp images, not ones surrounded by big chromatic halos. </p>

<p>So spherochromatism is not as big a problem as the gross chromatic (longitudinal) aberration, the one we typically call CA, which is producing bloated defocused images in say blue light when the green image is in sharp focus.</p>

<p>Now think of what happens in a perfect lens, say an APO short tele, when you focus on some object or plane, with other details out of focus in the foreground and background. Start with the lens wide open, and observe what happens as you stop it down. The blur disks in the out of focus areas become smaller, right?<br>

That is what is happening when you stop down a lens like the 600/4. The blue image plane is out of focus when the green is in focus, so as you stop down the lens, the blue blur disks shrink. Sufficiently stopped down, they may shrink to the point that they are also in focus. Getting the different colour planes to all come to focus may have a price (in addition to the dimness of the image): it will surely require a very small aperture stop, increasing the diffraction spot size of all the colours.</p>

<p>At the same time, stopping down is cutting out zones and thus also reducing spherochromatism, but as I said, that is more to do with sharpness in the plane of focus.</p>

<p>So I believe I've explained the primary reason why CA improves when you stop a lens down - it's more of a depth of field issue than anything else. Increasing dof also happens to decrease the degree of CA defocus.</p>