ondebanks

<p>105-210mm f4,5 ULD - I haven't had this lens very long or used it very much (and only then wide open), but it seems good through its range; best at ~120 - 140mm. BTW there was an older version with a bigger filter thread - the 58mm version is the newer and presumably better type.<br> <br /> 150mm f3,5N - I had the C version and it was very sharp for landscapes. I have the 150 f2.8 A now, but I don't think it's any better really.<br> <br /> 210mm f4 C - I tried the N version for a while and was impressed by the uniformity of the image sharpness across the field. My 200 f2.8 APO is better all round, but at a price!</p> <p>300mm f5,6 ULD - no experience with that one. I use a 300 f/4 MC Sonnar on an adapter, for the extra stop and dreamy bokeh.</p> <p>Neil mentioned the 110 f2.8 as well - I have the N version and I like it. I actually prefer it to both the 150mm lenses I've used. </p> <p>But the best lens of all in the focal length range between the 80mm standards and the 200mm APO is the 120mm f/4 Macro. This is super sharp and contrasty, and versatile as it maintains its excellence from macro to portraits to infinity. </p>

<blockquote> <p>...who uses both a CFV50 back with his 'V' Hasselblad as well as a H50C. He comments that the performance of the two are very similar (it is the same sensor after all).</p> </blockquote> <p>Actually it's a different sensor - very different!<br> Be careful of the nomenclature. The "50" backs are traditional 48 x 36 mm CCDs without microlenses; while the "50c" backs are newer 44 x 33 mm CMOS with microlenses, much lower noise, high ISO, video frame rates etc.</p>

<p>I had a tweaked Kiev 60 (Arax 60 MLU) which was a basic but good camera.</p> <p>It shares a lens-mount with the Pentacon Six (P6). The lenses are the attraction. You get a Kiev, or a Pentacon Six TL, in order to get a 6x6 image from the huge and diverse stable of P6-mount lenses. (If you are content with getting a 6x4.5 image from those lenses, then a Mamiya 645 or Pentax 645 body + a P6 lens adapter is a better choice). Check out Trevor Allin's www.pentaconsix.com site for everything there is to know about the P6 ecosystem.</p> <p>The thing to watch out (test) for in the Kiev 60 is slightly irregular movement of the focal plane shutter curtains, which causes exposure changes (banding) as they cross the film, at the faster shutter speeds. A CLA should fix that.</p>

<p>Lee,</p> <ol> <li>Are you saying that at the start of the roll, the leak is all on one edge (call it the top) with no leak on the bottom edge; and at the end of the roll it's the other way round?</li> <li>If so, is there some point roughly midway along the roll where there is no leak at all?</li> <li>Or is there instead some point in the middle of the roll where the top and bottom leaks are both present, but equal?</li> </ol> <p>What I'm getting at with these questions is that if your theory about the processing machine being loaded at an angle is correct, then the answer to question 2 would surely be "yes". If 2 is "no" but 3 is "yes", then I would suspect the handling of the roll itself - possibly by the machine operator - before it was loaded. </p>

<p>I read the Hasselblad threads purely out of curiosity [i'm a Mamiya man :) ] and I have to say that David's information is fascinating. Long may such experience and wisdom be shared here!</p>

<p>Are you referring to shooting the RZ67 with film?<br> <br />The focusing screen is the "live view" for film shooting...this could be monitored by a small video camera with a macro lens. But such a system won't capture exactly the instant of exposure, as the screen blacks out when the mirror lifts.</p>

<blockquote> <p>I own an ETRSi and I love it. It is the only 6x4.5 system that is fully modular. Pentax and Mamiya aren't.</p> </blockquote> <p>The Mamiya 645 Super and 645 Pro/ProTL are just as modular as the ERTSi.</p>

<blockquote> <p>Furthermore, I distinctly heard the shutter opening and closing each time (hard to miss that sound with the Pentax).</p> </blockquote> <p>Any chance that you were hearing the mirror slap, but not the shutter? Maybe the shutter was not moving at all on those frames. Either way, the solution is as Charles recommended. </p>

<blockquote> <p>It will probably help to pull the negative films (especially colour) by a stop; e.g. shoot and develop the ISO 100 film at ISO 50.</p> </blockquote> <p>Sorry; looking back at my advice, I see that I was misleading. What I meant was to overexpose by 1 stop; but not to also pull development. So shoot/meter at ISO 50 but still develop as normal at ISO 100. Otherwise the effect would cancel out (overexposure + underdevelopment)!</p>

<p>It will probably help to pull the negative films (especially colour) by a stop; e.g. shoot and develop the ISO 100 film at ISO 50. This will keep the detail above the fog/shadow noise floor, which tends to rise with expired films that have not been kept cold. Unfortunately the slide film is unlikely to have the latitude to allow this.</p>

<blockquote> <p>And you want to do this because... ?</p> </blockquote> <p>Hopefully Clark will reply, but my guess is that one of his lenses has clean glass in a broken shutter/barrel, while the other has scratched glass in a working shutter/barrel. </p>

<blockquote> <p>what about changing the focusing screen screen to the SF402...can i still use AF lenses normally or i need to change the screen every time???</p> </blockquote> <p>You can use the AF lenses with any focusing screen.</p> <p>The AF sensors are in the floor of the mirror box, so the light hits them independently of the light diverted to the focusing screen.</p> <p>The only contribution of the focusing screen to AF use is that some screens are engraved to show the small central areas of the scene that the three AF sensors are seeing. This is merely a visual assist for the photographer; once you are familiar with the location of these areas, you can mentally project them onto any screen.</p>

<p>Hello Brendan,<br> It sounds like you've put it through comprehensive testing. The fact that it didn't even work in multi exposure mode restricts the problem to the shutter mechanism and not the film handling mechanism (the two are combined through the winder).</p> <p>The only other thing I can think of is to see whether activating the mirror-up lever changes anything. The mirror rest is a known fragile piece on the 645 Pro / TL bodies; it's a really speculative longshot, but maybe the camera is unable to raise the mirror and that is blocking the shutter action?</p> <p>BTW, you can get a PDF of the user manual (and one for every other Mamiya medium format camera too!) at http://www.mamiyaleaf.com/documentation.html</p>

<p><em>It has wi-fi AND a touch screen. And everyone knows that Barney and Company prize those two attributes to a much greater degree than the boring stuff like: great color, high sharpness, beautiful tonality, etc.</em><br> <em><br /></em>Kirk betrays his ignorance and bias in such passages. The X1D sensor <strong>has already</strong> been shown to have <em>great color, high sharpness, beautiful tonality</em> in several other models from different manufacturers (Phase One, Hasselblad, Pentax). <br> <br> If he actually tested the camera instead of dismissing it from his armchair, he'd know that. <br> <br> Heck, if he even <em>read</em> about the other cameras that use that same sensor, he'd know that. <br /><br> <em> </em></p>

<p>Excellent news, and great to see Hasselblad innovating again. Hopefully with the well received H6D and CMOS backs, and now this, they've put the debacle of the "bling an old Sony camera and charge through the nose for it" era behind them.</p> <blockquote> <p>I think the sensor could have been bigger. But Hasselblad is already committed. Perhaps a competitor will step up with a bigger sensor that does justice to the term 'medium format'.</p> </blockquote> <p>Mirrorless high-megapixel cameras are only practical with CMOS sensors (because of the "digital video" viewfinder).<br> At present the only photographic medium format CMOS sensors larger than 35mm full frame are just three:</p> <ul> <li>This Sony 50MP 44 x 33 mm sensor, used by Hasselblad, Leaf, Phase One and Pentax</li> <li>The bigger Sony 100MP 54 x 40 mm sensor, used by Phase One and Hasselblad</li> <li>The CMOSIS 37MP 45 x 30 mm sensor, used by Leica</li> </ul> <p>So it is possible that Hasselblad will introduce another mirrorless body in this series, with the "full 645" [almost!] 100MP sensor. The unknown is whether their new lens line can cover that format.</p> <blockquote> <p>I assume the 45mm lens is roughly equivalent to 35mm in 35mm format?</p> </blockquote> <p>Yes. They have almost exactly the same diagonal field of view, give or take a fraction of a degree. The aspect ratios of the sensors are different, though (4:3 vs 3:2).</p> <blockquote> <p>Even at 44x33 mm, the sensor is twice the size of a full frame DSLR.</p> </blockquote> <p>Check your calcs...44x33mm is under 70% bigger than full frame DSLR format.<br> Still, that is significant in the digital world.</p> <blockquote> <p>Got to wonder if Mamiya will ever develop something like this to replace the 7 II. A nice 6x7cm sensor and those lenses? Could be nice. Horribly expensive, but nice.</p> </blockquote> <p>Phase One own Mamiya, and as I said, currently use a sensor as large as 645 film in their digital backs.<br> A 6x7 cm sensor is not on the cards though - and not just because, as you correctly say, it would be horribly expensive. The bigger issue is that there are few lenses and even fewer cameras extant to exploit its potential. The Mamiya 7 lenses were designed to be positioned very close to the flm, and the resulting steep angles of the emerging light beams will create havoc (peripheral colour shifts and pixel cross-talk) with a digital sensor.</p> <blockquote> <p>No mention of using 500 lenses on their official site, only H series. How would you cock the shutter on those?</p> </blockquote> <p>Both H and V (CF) series lenses can be used on the H series SLRs. Hasselblad make a V (CF) to H adapter, which does cock the shutter. <a href="http://www.hasselblad.com/accessories/medium-format/cf-adapter">http://www.hasselblad.com/accessories/medium-format/cf-adapter</a></p> <p>This new camera, being mirrorless, gives them even more room behind the lens for adapters. If I had one, I'd probably not even get a Hasselblad lens for it. I'd just use all my Mamiya 645 glass on it. It also wouldn't surprise me if many 35mm format lenses, especially telephotos, can cover the 44 x 33 mm format too - and the thin mirrorless body would let them reach infinity focus.</p> <p>I expect Phase One to counter with something very similar, very soon.</p>

<p>Interesting that all the recommendations so far are for 6x6 TLRs or folders, with rather simple (3 or 4 element) and medium speed (f3.5) lenses.</p> <p>But there are SLR options too, with generally faster (f2.8) and better (5 element) lenses. In the same price range, you can get a Pentacon Six TL with 80mm Biometar lens; or an original series Mamiya 645 with 80mm lens.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Hi Gordon,</p> <blockquote> <p>I currently wear glasses where i cannot see long distance objects (about 20cm without them).<br> I want to use the camera with my glasses.</p> </blockquote> <p>Then all you need is the standard WLF magnifier lens - not a special dioptre lens specific to your eyesight, as many respondents here have assumed.</p> <p>The purpose of any WLF magnifier eyepiece is to take the nearby object (the image on the focusing screen) and reproject it to infinity. That allows us to position our eye up close to the WLF lens, without strain, and to sharply see the entire field of view covered by the focusing screen. When you wear your glasses, your vision is also corrected to normal infinity focus, so the output beam from the WLF eyepiece is properly matched to your eyes.</p>

<blockquote> <p>I've never really seen a lens design like this before. Perhaps some form of close focusing correction?</p> </blockquote> <p>I have the optical diagrams of all the Mamiya 645 lenses, and the only one which looks something like the PS 180/4.5 above is the 120/4 A macro - the similarities are in the number and distribution of elements (both have 9 in total, distributed 3 in front of the aperture stop and a whopping 6 behind it). This lends some support to your thinking that this Bronica lens was designed with close focus in mind.</p> <blockquote> <p>Moreover, it has a rear plano-convex lens (I think) which stays stationary while the rest of the elements appear to move as a unit when focusing.</p> </blockquote> <p>That's interesting, and may also tally with the need to deliver high performance across a wide range of focus distances. Apart from the three zoom lenses, three of the M645 prime lenses had a "floating system" of elements/groups which automatically moved independently of the others: the 35/3.5 and 35/2.8 wideangles, and the 80/4 macro. Mamiya stated that this gave better correction of the edges of the field at closer focus distances.</p>

<p>Another source that comes to mind would be a 3rd party 2x teleconverter (Vivitar, Cambron, etc.) - often found for small money, especially if the glass has flaws.</p>

<p>OK, so you are basically making a DIY version of the Cambo Actus or Vizelex Rhinocam?</p> <p>There are many possible sources for a female M645 bayonet mount: a junker M645 body, an extension tube, or any number of cheap M645 lens to DSLR/CSC adapter rings sold online...</p> <p>A less obvious source is one of the "connecting rings" (CN-58 or CN-67) that Mamiya made for mouting their bellows lens hood on a reversed M645 lens in a macro setup.</p>

<blockquote> <p>15 stops dynamic range is a stupid figure to quote, and quite unachievable in real photography.</p> </blockquote> <p>Indeed. I think it is more a case of reassurance, in two ways:<br> (1) that the deepest shadows have reasonable signal to noise, and are not junk. A given scene, properly exposed and accounting for flare, might not have more than 12 stops of recorded brightness range; but there is a case for capturing that with a camera that can in theory go to 14 or 15 stops, rather than one which maxes out at 12 stops where that darkest 12th stop has equal signal and noise.<br> (2) that gross underexposure would not be a disaster and can be recovered from in post-processing.</p>

<p>That's an excellent explanation from Alexander.</p> <p>The only thing I can add is to address the question of "how is the extra dynamic range achieved?".</p> <p>Dynamic range (DR) is limited at the bright end by too much signal (saturation - the pixel is full to the brim), and limited at the faint end by noise (where a pixel has captured so little light, the meagre signal only equals the electronic noise added in reading out the pixel).</p> <p>For many years, the trend in sensor development has been to reduce the readout noise per unit area of the sensor. Although pixels have been getting smaller and hence their "full to the brim" capacity has also been shrinking, their capacity has been largely stable on a per unit area basis. [Four 4.5 micron wide pixels with 25,000 electrons capacity equals one 9 micron wide pixel with 100,000 electrons capacity]. So the gain in dynamic range has mainly come at the faint end, by reducing the sensor noise.</p> <p>This is particularly noticeable when you compare medium format CCD and CMOS sensors with a fairly similar pixel size. They give comparably rich highlight and mid-tones, but the low-noise CMOS runs away with it in the shadow details, where detail can still be perceived for another 3 stops or so of deep underexposure.</p>

<blockquote> <p>Are all of these waist level finders most or less the same? Are they all flipped left/right horizontally? Are the design and construction pretty much the same idea regardless if it is a WL finder on a TLR or SLR?</p> </blockquote> <p>Yes; yes; and yes. But it is important to note that it is <em>not the WLF</em> that flips the image. The image is flipped by the [lens -> 45 degree mirror -> screen] optical path - which is the same path for both an SLR and the viewing half of a TLR. If you remove a WLF and leave a "naked screen", the image remains the same; just harder to see in ambient light. </p>

<blockquote> <p>The original idea is to buy from ebay Japan and he will bring it back.</p> </blockquote> <p>Is it that expensive to just ship it from Japan, without involving your friend? I'm also based in Europe and have bought numerous cameras/lenses from Japan via ebay. The quality and value (and sometimes relative scarceness) of the item makes the shipping a reasonable part of the overall cost equation.</p> <p>Also, I would be concerned that once it is in your friend's hands and still with half the world to traverse to get it to you, the clock is already ticking on whatever "testing period" you have, and furthermore you might not be covered for any impact-related defects you might discover on its arrival to you - the seller could (fairly or not) attribute this to your friend's travels, whereas at least you have some cover with insured post from Japan.</p>

<blockquote> <p>Think you're making the exception into a rule.</p> </blockquote> <p>It's funny, C - I read Stephen's comment the opposite way to how you did. To me he was saying "You <em>cannot</em> make a rule based simply on age". Which makes sense to me.</p>