ondebanks

<blockquote> <p>Is there a way to use a collection of Hasselblad lenses on a Mamiya67?</p> </blockquote> <p>I have to ask, also - why do you seek to do this? Even if it were physically possible, I cannot see anything gained by using a bulkier, heavier body with a higher viewfinder crop factor. The digital back's sensor is going to be smaller than 645 format nomatter what camera you attach it to, so the smaller camera makes more sense.</p>

<blockquote> <p>Could you enlighten me on the issue of interchangeable digital backs for both Hasselblad and Mamiya RZ67 systems. Is there a digital back that fits both?</p> </blockquote> <p>There are no* digital backs in "native" Mamiya RZ67 fitting. It has a sufficiently recessed focal plane that there is room for an adapter plate used in conjunction with digital backs for certain other fittings.</p> <p>So, digital backs in Hasselblad V (not H!) fitting can be used on a Mamiya RZ67, via an adapter plate. Similarly, digital backs in Mamiya 645AFD fitting can be used on a Mamiya RZ67, via a different adapter plate.</p> <p>* OK, for completeness, there used be modular digital backs from Leaf, Sinar and Imacon 10-15 years ago, which each had a suite of camera adapter plates...that's the closest the RZ67 has ever been to having a "native" fitting digital back.</p>

<p>Even if you made such an adapter, it would work for macro photography, nothing else. As John says, you can't get the M7 lenses close enough to the focal plane of an SLR type camera to shoot at normal distances.</p> <p>If you are set on shooting medium format digital with that kind of lens, there is a chap in Korea who modded a Mamiya 6 body to take a Hasselblad V-mount digital back. It was up on ebay for a long time...seems to be gone now. The same principle would work with a Mamiya 7 body.</p>

<p>Yoichi, you're very welcome. Always glad to help a fellow MFer and Pdotnetter!</p> <p>I remembered a roll I shot 9 years ago where I diagnosed this problem on an old M645 1000s body I had just acquired. The photo below is from this roll - artistically it's "nothing", just a test photo taken across the road from my house, where I pointed the rear of the camera towards the bright sky for a while and then wound on and shot a couple of handheld frames.</p> <p>My light leak is obvious and resembles your one closely. Notice how another sign of this type of rear light leak is that, in both our cases, the leaked light is not the same colour as the scene being photographed. </p> <p>4 of the 15 shots on that roll showed a leak to some extent...the ones without leaks were taken following shorter intervals and/or in more subdued ambient light inside woodland.</p><div></div>

<blockquote> <p>I believe the issue might actually be shutter bounce/stall, as mentioned by Dave and Tom. To support my opinion, I should explain that while this issue occurred frequently, it did not occur consistently, meaning it did not happen on every frame--I did get a number of clear shots on rolls that included streaked shots. If it were a light leak, wouldn't every frame on an affected roll be more or less affected?</p> </blockquote> <p>No, believe me, it is a light leak. Why doesn't it affect every frame? Because it depends on (a) how long a piece of film spent sitting on the roller at the top of the film insert, facing the leaky door seal, waiting to be wound on; and (b) how bright the external ambient light conditions were while it was sitting there. It could take many minutes or hours of leak-exposure to register what you see on the film, so taking shots in relatively quick succession made those shots come out ok.</p> <blockquote> <p>Also, as you can see from my additional examples the streaks are fairly consistent in location, intensity, and gradient, which suggests to me a mechanical, i.e. curtain, malfunction.</p> </blockquote> <p>The consistency is also a hallmark of a light leak from the upper rear. The affected area of film must be sitting on a particular roller to be illuminated by the leak. If frames are regularly spaced at the film gate, they are also regularly spaced at the light leak position.</p> <blockquote> <p>Finally, given that, as I mentioned in my original post, there were seemingly completely un-exposed frames on certain rolls, the shutter not firing seems the cause.</p> </blockquote> <p>Now that could be a shutter problem alright. But first, can you rule out with certainty that you didn't just grossly underexpose those frames? One thing to watch with the PD prism is that when you mount or change the lens, you must ensure that the pin under the front of the prism engages in the lug on the aperture ring of the lens. If it doesn't, and you stop down the lens aperture, the PD prism doesn't know that and it will happily tell you that your exposure is fine when it's going to be very underexposed.</p>

<p>That's definitely a light leak from a degraded light seal in the door-frame of the film chamber. Been there, fixed that. Just scrape out what's left of the old mushy foam with a toothpick [second time in this thread that the humble toothpick is the tool of choice!], and apply replacement self-adhesive black foam strips, available from online merchants. IIRC I cut the narrow strips myself from a bigger piece of self-adhesive black foam.</p> <p>Tip: if your photos seem to show light leaks, check whether the leak extends past the image area onto the film rebate. If it does (and I will bet that in this case it does), the light is entering from the rear of the camera/back. If not, it's coming from the front. This is true of pretty much any camera.</p>

<blockquote> <p>If somebody could give me some insight into this topic as well as potentially recommending other pick ups then that would be great.</p> </blockquote> <p>For a bit of fun, you might also want to pick up a used Polaroid back and some instant film packs from Fuji. The RB67 uses more of the area of a "Polaroid" print than any other mainstream medium format SLR. </p>

<blockquote> <p>The film back is 6x7. The camera housing and opening is square 7x7. The Bronica GS-1 was a true 6x7 with removable back and you would have to flip the whole camera for horiz and vert. The RB as in the design is a 6x7 back that rotates over a 7x7 opening.</p> </blockquote> <p>And later RB models can take 6x8 backs over their 8x8 opening...noting that due to the always optimistically rounded-up nature of medium format mathematics, the 8 here refers to 7.6 cm rather than 8.0 cm.</p> <p> </p>

<p>This answers the question "What's better than a Hasselblad?" -- <em>two</em> Hasselblads!</p> <p>...or one Mamiya :-D</p>

<p>I think you have found an excellent bargain. A P30 back on its own can sell for that much, so the camera and lens are basically "free". </p> <p>The number of actuations on the back is irrelevant (no moving parts), but the number on the lens shutter has some significance. I don't know enough about the H lenses to say whether 36,000 is a significant proportion of the expected shutter life. It is reassuing that it has been recently serviced, though.</p> <p>Only thing to be wary of with getting into the H system, versus Pentax or Mamiya/PhaseOne, is that the H lenses are generally a lot more expensive...the differential is especially noticeable with used lenses. You are also restricted to only Hasselblad H or V leaf-shutter lenses (the latter on a rather expensive CF adapter) - a lens range which is certainly enough for most users - but the focal plane medium format digital bodies from Mamiya/PhaseOne, Pentax, Contax and Leica all open up a bigger potential range and some truly exotic glass options.</p>

<p>Jessie,</p> <p>Don't buy it. Leaf Aptus mounts are not user-interchangeable nor adaptable between camera platforms. I doubt that Leaf themselves will change it for you either. Even Phase One, who advertise a platform/mount change service (at huge cost!), don't actually change the mount on the back you send in: instead they return you a <em>different </em>used back in similar condition, in the mounting that you seek! </p>

<blockquote> <p>Sounds like you need a glass negative carrier, with anti-newton glass.</p> </blockquote> <p>Anti-Newton glass...<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E2%80%93Newton_calculus_controversy">aka, Leibniz glass</a>! :)</p>

<p>Adrian,<br> <br />My comments are:</p> <p>1) The outwardly curved image corners are absolutely normal with the M645 range. This is not a flaw.</p> <p>2) It sounds like your 35mm C lens has a misalignment problem. You say "At the infinity mark the images were very soft" and "it's very soft on the left side in the middle distance compared to the right". Both of these statements started alarm bells ringing. My 35mm N (same optical formula bar the coatings) is extremely sharp centrally at infinity, even wide open, and even on smaller-pixel digital bodies. And a classic sign of a misaligned lens is that it is softer on one side of the image than on the other. Furthermore, the 35mm lens (a) is an ultra-wideangle and (b) incorporates a floating element. Both characteristics make it more prone to image degradation from misalignment, usually after it's taken a fall.<br> I think it's better to test for possible camera issues by using your more robust 80mm lens.</p> <p>3) The daffodils photo is lovely, but it's not the best subject for a focus test - too 3 dimensional and irregular, and using the 80mm lens in its close focus range is not where it is optimised (I'm assuming you have an 80/2.8 or 80/1.9 and not the 80/4 macro).<br> I'd run a series of 80mm exposures at infinity, varying the aperture from wide open to its smallest stop.</p> <p>4) I'd agree with others that a flatbed scan won't give you more than about 2000 dpi of real resolution. With a 645 frame, that's around 15 Mpix equivalent, some distance behind a 36MP D800E. But slow film, good technique and a "proper" scan (as per Lubos' post) can produce over 40MP.</p>

<p>You can tighten up a finished rollfilm as soon as you remove it from the camera, by holding it gently in the middle while turning the spool ends with your other hand. Don't overdo it, as this risks friction-induced static marks.</p>

<blockquote> <p>55 on 645 equals 35 on 135?</p> </blockquote> <p>Yes, Igor. There's a somewhat different aspect ratio (4:3 vs 3:2) but ignoring that, the diagonal angle of a 55mm lens on 645 is the same as a 34mm lens on 135...so just a tiny bit wider than a 35mm lens.</p>

<p>The bit that broke off in the mirror box is the Achilles' heel of the mid-generation Mamiyas (Super, Pro, ProTL)...it's the plastic mirror rest/brake.</p> <p>I also suspect that the shutter is bust...it probably served previous owner(s) well through a lot of work.</p> <p>So at this point, it may be time to regard the body as a spare-parts donor. Its focus screen and film magazine are both saleable in their own right. Also on the upside, you appear to have a lens, AE prism, and winder-grip that are all working ok. These alone are worth about twice the $100 you paid for the kit. </p>

<p>Some of those are really nice - great light and tone. I like Brume d'hiver-008 and Brume d'hiver-011 best.</p> <p>You should add your best selection to this month's POTM thread.</p>

<blockquote> <p>I know the DOF for 645 that any F2.8 lens is similar to 1.4 in 35mm.</p> </blockquote> <p>The f-stop difference between 35mm and 645 is not as large as that.</p> <p>The crop factor/focal length multiplier from 35mm format to 645 format is 1.6. So a 50mm lens on 35mm is equivalent to an 80mm lens on 645 (this is convenient, as those two lenses actually exist, as the "standards" for their format).</p> <p>The aperture for equivalent DOF must also change by 1.6x. Since 1.4x is a difference of 1 stop and 2x is a difference of 2 stops, this change falls between 1 and 2 stops, and closer to the 1 stop end. It amounts to this: an f1.4 lens on 35mm format has a 645 equivalent of f2.2. </p> <p>For 6x7, the equivalent lens would be f2.9...so f2.8 is fine to use in this case. </p>

<p>Cheers, Dan. That Alpa/35 Apo Grandy combination is repeatedly referred to by Roger Hicks & Frances Schultz, so that's why I had it in mind.</p>

<blockquote> <p>The ad information about the Rodenstock 32mm f/4 HR Digaron-W Lens, designed for full format sensors, says that vignetting is eliminated at f/8. I find this remarkable if it suggests that this lens, which sells new for about $8,000, would vignette wide open, presumably even without tilt or swing, on a sensor that costs about $40,000.</p> </blockquote> <p>As far as vignetting goes, there are two types which arise in lenses: mechanical and optical. Stopping down the lens doesn't do anything for optical vignetting, because it is a geometrical effect which is unaffected by the pupil size. But stopping down usually improves mechanical vignetting, which is the partial obstruction of off-axis light traversing the lens. </p> <p>A feature of retrofocus wideangles is that they normally vignette less than "optically true" wideangles of the same focal length. This is because their design reduces the optical component of vignetting. </p> <p>So you may indeed wonder why this expensive retrofocus Rodenstock still suffers vignetting from f/4 to f/8. It's basically mechanical vignetting. As a tech-cam lens, it must have its own leaf shutter, and that is one mechanical bottleneck (it seems that only small size 0 shutters are used nowadays). Oversizing the lens elements, shutter, and barrel components would alleviate mechanical vignetting wide open, but that would make the lens even more expensive, and increase its weight and bulk.</p> <p> </p>

<blockquote> <p>Lenses specially designed for medium format digital seem to go no wider than about 35mm, which is about 20mm in 35mm equivalents against a full frame 645 sensor. (There are exceptions, but these seem to be devoted to smaller-than-full-frame sensors and so are no wider.) There are, however, wider lenses (including non-fish-eye) for smaller sensor cameras. So, e.g., Panasonic makes a 7mm lens (14mm in 35mm equiv.) for a micro 4/3 camera. If I'm right, I wonder why it is harder to go wider on larger sensors than smaller ones. Perhaps it's that for small sensors, the image circle need not accommodate movements, and I notice that large format lenses similarly don't offer a wider image against 4x5 film</p> </blockquote> <p>The larger film and digital formats are not really that devoid of ultra-wideangles. Like the little Panasonic, the widest rectilinear medium and large format lenses also tend to be equivalent to around a 14-15mm lens on 35mm format - eg. a 35mm APO-Grandagon on a 6x9 cm backed Alpa (a tech-cam type of setup). </p> <p>It's true that few medium format <em>SLR</em> systems approach that rectilinear ultra-wideness, but the record holder is probably the first version of the Pentax 645 24mm, which covers 645 film, and is equivalent to a 15mm lens on 35mm format. On digital medium format SLRs, the widest lens is the Hasselblad 24mm, which covers their bigger Kodak sensors with an equivalence of 17mm on 35mm format; next comes the Mamiya 28mm, which covers a "full frame" Dalsa 60MP or 80MP sensor with an equivalence of 18mm on 35mm format; and then the Pentax 24mm is slightly behind that, at 19mm on 35mm format, due to the smaller sensors in the 645D and 645Z.</p> <p>Tech cams can push even wider on digital, thanks to the Rodenstock 23mm which covers a "full frame" Dalsa 60MP or 80MP sensor with an equivalence of just under 15mm on 35mm format.</p> <p>Meanwhile, on 4x5 film, the Super Angulon 47mm XL is equivalent to a whopping 13mm lens on 35mm. </p>

<blockquote> <p>It indeed might be a little helpful for you to tell us which camera you have.</p> </blockquote> <p>One can infer that he has some version of Pentax 67 from the thread chain at the top:<br> <a href="/community/index">Community</a> > <a href="/community/forums">Forums</a> > <a href="/medium-format-photography-forum/">Medium Format</a> > <a href="/medium-format-photography-forum/?category=Pentax+67+Accessories">Pentax 67 Accessories</a> > Focusing Screen</p>

<p>I second the advice on at least partially splitting the kit.</p> <p>Body + prism + 80/2.8 + one 120 RH (+ probably the grip handle) would sell as a nice kit for someone getting into the system. The right angle viewer, second RFH, and other lenses should all be listed for sale individually. </p> <p>You may end up a bit disappointed that the premium you'd expect for CLA'ed mint gear won't fully materialise. None of these items is uncommon, and Mamiya buyers are not like Leica buyers...they expect solid, hard-wearing gear that they can make good use of. </p>

<p>I took some shots that may be helpful.</p> <p>First, the lever at the right hand side of the film chamber which moves upwards when a 220 insert is inserted. I verified that with the frame counter at 15, and no insert, winding cannot continue; but holding this lever upwards with a finger releases something which does allows winding to continue. Maybe this lever is somehow jammed upwards on Kenneth's camera?<br> <img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img540/8774/5tKXtU.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p>Second, a 220 insert. Note the triangular appendage on the side which engages that lever.<br> <img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img538/9364/5msaa7.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p>Third, a 120 insert. Note the lack of the triangular appendage (although the holes are pre-drilled for it). The other difference (which can't be seen from this angle) is the lack of pressure plate side-channel milling in the 120 insert.<br> <img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img538/4031/rILebb.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p>Also, my memory was flawed when I referred above to "the larger gear in the top right corner". When taking the chamber pic above I realised that I meant the slightly <em>smaller</em> gear (silvery and fine-toothed), in the <em>middle</em> of the right hand side!</p>

<blockquote> <p>It would be excellent to have a camera that had high megapixel (36mp, or even 20mp+), the low light capabilities of many 35mm cameras, and sufficient room in the image chamber to adequately control flare. And while I'm at it, I would include a 4x3 image ratio that's characteristic of medium format sensors, and no anti-aliasing filter.</p> </blockquote> <p>You've just described all of the new 50MP CMOS medium format digital options out there!</p> <p>But I understand you were hoping for these characteristics in 35mm size and 35mm pricing...<br> Maybe a thin CSC design, like the Sony A7R, would solve the problem of body chamber flare? You get a great sensor, high MP, no AA filter, and you could crop to 4:3 post exposure.</p>