ondebanks

<p>Kryn, if there's a D in the name (as in H4D, H5D), not only can it not use film backs, it is also tied to a particular digital back (factory mated to one or more particular Hasselblad back serial numbers). People complained about this restriction for a long time, so Hasselblad eventually relented and released the parallel H4X (now H5X), which allows 3rd party digital backs and film backs - like the early H1 and H2 did.</p>

<p>The battery is indeed dead/missing.</p> <p>One wonders really how you got any usable exposures on your first films, because with a dead (or missing) battery, not only does the mirror stay up, the shutter stays open also until you press the BC button!</p> <p>In fact, as the manual describes, this is a trick to get long mechanical Time exposures which don't consume any battery power (not that the electronic B long exposure mode uses a noticeable amount either).</p> <p>One thing to watch - unless you are using a PD prism or AE prism, do not set the body's exposure time selector to the red circular symbol between the B and 1/1000 [or 1/500 depending on the model] positions. Doing so will quickly drain the battery.</p>

<blockquote> <p>I guess old fellows like me still think of the f/2.8 Planar and Xenotar as the fastest.</p> </blockquote> <p>Which reminds me - I left one of each off my f/2 list above! 80mm f/2 Xenotar for the Rollei 6008, and 110mm f/2 Planar for both the Rollei 6008 and the Hasselblad 200/2000 series.</p>

<blockquote> <p>I'd like a medium format camera with an f/2 lens.</p> </blockquote> <p>You have some options. Try the Mamiya 645 (f/1.9), Contax 645 (f/2), Norita 6x6 (f/2)...and then there are a couple of aerial lenses...</p>

<p>You've achieved something here...I'm just not sure if there's a market for it. I'm familiar with your Polaroid conversions, which make sense. This one I'm really not so sure about.</p> <p>Is the rangefinder focusing precise enough for 5.4 micron pixels? I doubt it.</p> <p>Is the lens sharp enough for 5.4 micron pixels? I doubt that too. But then you describe using a modern Schneider Digitar in its place. And a smaller body. And adding tilt and shift. By the time you are finished with these modifications, how much of the original camera will remain? Would it not be better to start from scratch and build a better, really precise system from the ground up?</p> <p>But then, there are companies which have already built really precise, compact systems for non-SLR digital back usage. Companies like Arca, Cambo, Hartblei and Alpa. Can your model compete on quality with them? Can it compete on versatility? (they take interchangeable lenses, in some cases even 35mm format lenses). Can it even compete on price? A price of "6-8000 per unit" seems awful high for something based on a 1950s platform and with a fixed lens. </p> <p>So is your USP (unique selling point) basically the rangefinder? If that's the case, wouldn't a better starting point be a Mamiya 6 or Mamiya 7 body? I've actually seen on ebay a Mamiya 6 converted for a Hasselblad digital back fitting. Compact body, good rangefinder, top quality interchangeable lenses, which are more suited to the 645-format digital back sizes. And yet, IIRC, it took quite a while to sell. </p>

<blockquote> <p>As a note, the 645Z sensor is twice as big as a 35mm frame</p> </blockquote> <p>44 x 33 mm is less than 1.7x as big than 35mm...but still worth it.</p>

<blockquote> <p>the Hasselblad's (or Leica S's) MF advantage seem 16Bit/channel vs 14 provided by Nikon or Pentax 645 Z&D.</p> </blockquote> <p>This is a myth, which the MFD manufacturers are only too happy to see continue to propagate. There hasn't been a true 16 bit medium format system since the 11 micron pixel era of the late 1990s. Nowadays they still have 16 bit AtoD converters, but they route 14 bit sensor outputs through them. So it has no benefit.</p> <blockquote> <p>AFAIK Hasselblad offer a DMF back for their classics now?</p> </blockquote> <p>The Hasselblad classics (I presume you mean V series) always have been supported with digital backs, whether by 3rd parties or by Hasselblad themselves. What's changed recently is that Hasselblad now have - for the first time - a very low noise CMOS back in the CFV50c.</p> <p>The same Sony 44x33 mm CMOS sensor is used in the Pentax 645Z camera and Phase One IQ250 back. There are huge price disparities between all three, with the Pentax being a relative bargain, the Hasselblad being the cheapest detachable back, and the Phase One being, well, reassuringly expensive.</p>

<p>Yes, it will. 1:1 magnification means that 1 mm on the subject being photographed is imaged as 1 mm on the sensor/film. You can have different sized sensors/film, but 1 mm across them is always 1 mm!</p>

<blockquote> <p>FireWire 400 is the 6 pin -> 6 pin with the rounded edge. FireWire 800 is a rectangular plug with a notch.</p> </blockquote> <p>Firewire 400 had another connector type as well - smaller and 4 pins - which routes data over the bus, but not power. </p>

<blockquote> <p>Having used the 80, 45 and 150 from the M645 days on the current digital Mamiya (with a Leaf Credo 40, I would strongly recommend looking at upgrading the lenses. The digital back shows off the shortcomings of the older lenses</p> </blockquote> <p>That's a good point, John, but I think much depends on the resolution (pixel size, not pixel count) of the back. Your Credo uses 6 micron pixels, whereas nearly all the ones I mentioned use 9 or 11 micron pixels - much more forgiving of lens performance, if one goes pixel-peeping. I have no complaints really with M645 lenses on my 9 micron back, though the later manual focus lenses are clearly better corrected for chromatism.</p>

<p>Avi,<br> <br />Is the Coolscan showing up as an "unidentified device" on the IEEE1394 bus in "Devices and Printers"? If that's the case you could be halfway there - next step is to provide the correct driver. I had (and solved) a very similar issue when trying to tether my old Firewire digital back to Windows.</p>

<blockquote> <p>And yet strangely, there are Tilt/Shift lenses as short as 17mm working perfectly acceptably on Full-frame DSLRs with CMOS sensors. </p> </blockquote> <p>But that's an apples/oranges comparison. We're talking about "large format-style lenses" here, specifically the modern "digital" wideangles which are far better in edge performance (on the right sensor) than medium format SLR retrofocus designs. The full-frame DSLR tilt/shifts, OTOH, like Canon's 17mm and 24mm, are as strongly dependent on retrofocus design as medium format SLR wideangles. Just look at how far from the focal plane their rearmost optical surfaces are - in the 65 mm ballpark (44mm for the camera body flange + another ~2cm forward into the lens barrel, to give clearance for the tilt/shift mechanisms). I'd expect such a DSLR retrofocus wideangle to behave fine on a CMOS sensor, just as I'd expect a medium format retrofocus wideangle to behave fine on the new larger CMOS sensors. </p> <blockquote> <p>How far do you want to shift? Even on film an extreme shift wasn't sharp.</p> </blockquote> <p>I'm no practitioner of shifting, but I gather that those who do, expect to be able to perform a shift of about half the height of the sensor. </p>

<blockquote> <p>I don't want to manually stop down the lens so I think that excludes all the Auto focus bodies, correct?</p> </blockquote> <p>Correct. But excluding the AF bodies shuts you out from 95% of the digital back options, including everything from the past 6 or 7 years, so are you sure you want to draw that particular line in the sand?</p> <blockquote> <p>So that leaves the Super, Pro, and ProTL. What digital backs are available for them? I will be buying used.</p> </blockquote> <p>Mainly very old, and relatively hard to come by backs. Imacon and Sinar were the only companies widely supporting the 645 ProTL interface (covers the Super and Pro as well). They adopted the "detachable camera adapter" model in the late 1990s and early 2000s; Hasselblad partially maintained it up to the mid-2000s after they absorbed Imacon; but no company does it anymore.</p> <p>So your options are:<br> Imacon Flexframe (tethered only), Imacon iXpress (semi-portable), Hasselblad CF [not CFV!] (portable). These ranges have camera-specific adapters, so you'll want to find a matching 645 ProTL adapter .</p> <p>Sinar Sinarbacks (tethered only). Again, uses camera-specific adapters. </p> <p>Leaf Volare & Cantare (tethered only) from the late 1990s. Again, uses camera-specific adapters; but Leaf abandoned that approach after this line. I have never seen the 645 Pro version, outside of a catalog reference.</p> <p>Then there are the really rare oddballs from the mid to late 1990s, like Megavision backs, and the Dicomed "LittleBigshot".</p> <p>One thing to beware - many of these tethered-only systems require obsolete and complex computer connectivity - specific PC boards, SCSI ports, Cardbus connectors, and the like. If at all possible, buy them as a complete working kit with the original computer hardware and software included. Better yet, try to get a back which runs over Firewire instead - e.g. Sinar switched from fibre-optic boards to Firewire for the later Sinarbacks. Even then, you may have to use a Mac (Sinar and Leaf didn't support Windows), and an old model at that.</p> <p> </p>

<blockquote> <p>how many rolls can you expect for a fresh 4LR44. Ballpark figure. Less than 5, less than 10, around 20, more?</p> </blockquote> <p>Hundreds of rolls. The moving-coil shutter consumes almost no power, at any shutter speed. If you use a metering/AE prism head, that takes its power from the body battery, so battery lifetime drops compared to using a WLF or unmetered prism, but is still extremely long.</p> <p>For the precursor of this camera, the M645 1000s, Mamiya stated that this type of battery lasts for 5,000 exposures even if you metered every single one with the PD prism, which also draws its power from that battery...or 100,000 exposures if you never meter. The 645 Pro uses the battery for a few more things than the M645 1000s does (the shutter release and self timer went from being mechanical to electronic, for example), but it's still a fundamentally mechanical camera, with only light and intermittent battery usage.</p>

<blockquote> <p>He is asking in the $300 ball park which seems like a steal to me.</p> </blockquote> <p>Assuming it works, that is indeed a steal. But hopefully it's not literally stolen goods :)</p>

<blockquote> <p>Maybe the RB/RZ are the same but otherwise don't each of the Mamiya cameras have a different lens mount?</p> </blockquote> <p>Yup, there are 6 different, incompatible Mamiya medium format lens mounts: 645/645AF, C220/C330 TLR, Mamiya 6, Mamiya 7, RB67/RZ67, and Mamiya Press/Universal. </p>

<blockquote> <p>I can not understand / Imagine why there would be a huge issue with blowing up Leica's current concept for their RF CCDs & CMOSes with decentered micro lenses in the format corner to 6x7cm FMF size once such sensors can be made at all.</p> </blockquote> <p>As I pointed out to Rodeo, the issue is that such a design is not conducive to the tech-cam style of shooting where shifts and tilts are the norm. It suits Leicas because they are nearly always shot straight-on.</p> <blockquote> <p><br /> I do see a future for technical cameras in the digital MF realm. Good WA lenses for them might not exist yet.</p> </blockquote> <p>Oh, they do exist! There are some staggeringly good "medium format tech digital" designs in the 23mm - 60mm focal length range from Rodenstock and Schneider (the Rodies are generally preferred in the very short focal lengths). The limitation is not the lenses; it's the way the sensors interact with the images they project. </p>

<blockquote> <p>And both CMOS and CCD sensors need a similar filter and microlens array over the top of the sensor proper.</p> </blockquote> <p>But that "need" is not absolute. Most of the medium format CCDs actually don't have microlenses, especially all the ones in the 48 x 36 mm class, and that is precisely why they have worked well with technical-camera lenses.</p> <p>Without microlenses, you get a back which is even more disabled than normal at reaching higher ISOs, but the tech-cam shooters are not too perturbed by that, as long as they get really sharp and colour-faithful images out to the corners.</p> <blockquote> <p>Your "very knowledgeable" rep is talking pure BS.<br /> In any case, the large format lens used would have to be exceedingly short to throw an incident angle acute enough to trouble a 56mm wide sensor.</p> </blockquote> <p>The BS is from your side, I'm afraid. There are <em>already</em> problems with large format-style lenses on the microlensed 44 x 33 mm sensors (both CCD and CMOS) when shifted, and on the microlensed 54 x 41 mm sensors when straight-on. Check the threads on getdpi.com, especially posts by a chap called Torger who has investigated the pixel crosstalk (colour desaturation) and microlens ripple problems in depth.</p> <blockquote> <p>- Yeah, right. That was Leica's excuse for not putting a full-frame sensor in their M8 in 2007. Lo and behold, just two years later in 2009, up pops the M9 with a full-frame sensor and no mention or complaint about poor image quality in the corner of the frame.</p> </blockquote> <p>Leica solved this problem by some clever engineering, which obviously took some time to develop. The M8 used standard microlensed CCDs, whereas the M9 (and larger S2) use radially offset microlenses that had to be developed in conjunction with Kodak.<br /> The problem is though, the same approach <em>won't work</em> for medium format tech-cams, because once you shift/tilt the lens, you centre its axis over the wrong microlens geometry - possibly making matters even worse than if you had normal microlenses!<br /> It's by no means going to be an easy problem to solve, and I think the rep that Lobalobo conversed with was on the money in this regard.</p>

<p>All sorts of technical problems with this idea, unfortunately.</p> <p>First, as John said, there's the lack of format coverage. A 645 lens might just about project a 6x6 image, probably no more, but image quality could be rather poor in the extremities.</p> <p>Then, there's flange distance: the M645 lenses like the 80/1.9 require 63.3mm, just slightly less than the Mamiya Press flange distance - in other words, there's no way that this lens could reach infinity focus on the Mamiya Press, even if a really slim adapter were available.</p> <p>But the biggest problem is that the 80/1.9 lens doesn't have a shutter - and the Mamiya Press body doesn't have a shutter either; it requires its lenses to have shutters.</p> <p>Virtually all interchangeable-lens 6x9 cameras are the same: they require lenses with shutters.</p> <p>Things are very modular in medium format, but there is much less compatibility between systems than you must have been thinking. Generally, the rules for cross-adapting lenses are:<br> (1) The lens must have a longer flange distance than the body - this typically means that the lens comes from a larger format system than the body (which also takes care of the format coverage issue);<br> (2) The body must have a focal-plane shutter;<br> (3) The lens must have its own focusing helix.</p> <p>So if you like this lens (and I agree, it's wonderful) and want to get the biggest format out of it, just use it on any (manual or autofocus) Mamiya 645 body.</p>

<p>Tom, I've addressed this in your other current thread "<a href="/medium-format-photography-forum/00cuYP">500EL or 503CX going digital advice please </a>"</p>

<blockquote> <p>The CFV 16 looks ideal for my purpose (does this work "out of the box" with my gear or would I need a back etc. I don't mind tethered working at all) or would the H20 be the way. Which is likely to hit my pocket more, the H20 or the CFV16.</p> </blockquote> <p>The CFV backs are newer (relatively) than the Phase One H-series backs, like the H20, and a lot more expensive (see Edward's pricing above) mainly because they are self-contained with LCD, CF card slot and battery. The H-series on the other hand must be tethered to a computer - although you say you don't mind that.</p> <p>Note that the H-series backs were sold in several different fittings/mounts - you need to find a Hasselblad V-mount version. Not sure who told you that you need an adapter plate - you don't - you just need to get the right version in the first place. The CFV backs are already (and only) in V-mount. Any V-mount digital back slots onto your Hasselblads as-is, on just like a film back.</p> <p>Also note that there is a large range of other suitable self-contained used backs to consider as well. The Leaf Aptus and Phase One P series range run cheaper than the CFV equivalents. The Phase One P+ series goes for about the same price as the CFV equivalents - the reason being that they added long exposure capability in the Kodak-sensored P+ backs and large high resolution sensors in the P+ Dalsa-sensored backs. Again, watch out for the different fittings and get a V-mount type.</p>

One correction to Edward's informative inputs: the CFV16 back has 9 micron pixels, not 16 micron. But while some even older backs have 11 and 12 micron pixels, 9 micron is the canonical "fat pixel" size and gives great results.

<p>I guess you were previously running Mamiya DPS on an older machine with OS 9?<br> Emulators/virtualisation to run the older versions of Mac OS are few in number, slow, and somewhat unstable. SheepShaver seems to be the recommended one (recommended with reservations).</p> <p>I think your best bet would be to install a high performance virtualisation software for OS X, such as VMWare Fusion, and inside that install Microsoft Windows (Windows 7 is probably best) and the Windows program, Mamiya Remote Capture Beta Version. You can find the latter on my <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7418300/Mamiya%20RemoteCapture%20beta%20Installer.exe">Dropbox link </a>- a few ZD shooters have got it from me already this year. Although it says Beta Version, this was the only version that Mamiya publically released of Mamiya Remote Capture, which tethers the ZD under Windows.</p> <p>I am currently running several Windows 7 and XP apps, through VMWare Fusion on my MacMini OS X Mavericks. It is convenient, stable and as smooth/fast as running on a native Windows machine. </p> <p> </p>

<blockquote> <p>Bill Maxwell is still in business. I spoke with him Thursday and today I sent him my #4 screen for my Mamiya 645 1000s to have his upgrade done to it.</p> </blockquote> <p>Interesting, Anthony - what's he charging for that upgrade? </p>

<p>Nice work, Jim.</p> <p>I am 99% certain that this was one of the great majority of M645 lenses which underwent no optical formula change (other than coatings) from C -> N. </p>