steven_lust

I have just discovered that when I put a film in the back and try to load it to the 1st frame it will not even advance ! New batteries everywhere and cleaned gold contacts make zero difference. Only resolution was to use another back which loads ok. This is only the 7th disappointing experience with Mamiya which resulted in me selling my old 645 AF for an AFD. What a mistake ..

I currently own a Mamiya 645AF outfit with both 80mm, 150mm & 210mm.

I use it mainly for portraits and candid, all hand held and never in

a studio.

 

I am a bit fed up with the lack of close focusing with the 150mm and

210mm. I bought a number 1 extension tube to try and solve the issue

but then found that the depth of field is so shallow that I can

hardly manage to get the face in focus @ f4 unless it's looking

straight at the camera ! (Ie semi profile shots usually have one eye

slightly out of focus)

 

I am wondering if I change to Hasselblad if the Zeiss lenses (say 150

or 180) will help me in this respect. I want to get a tight head and

shoulders without resorting having to focus at the minimum focusing

distance for dof reasons, or without resorting to extention tubes

which only seem to make the problem worse.

 

Am I dreaming ? or is the only solution to use less focus length ?

Do the Zeiss lens designs at 150 or 180 allow tight head and

shoulders without suffering the above issues ?

I would like to hear comments about the new 645 AFD functions,

(matrix metering, flash compensation etc) that anyone has experienced,

particularly from users of the original 645 AF who can comment on the

differences. Any comments about results with the Leaf digital back

would also be very interesting.

 

I would also like to know if anyone has experience of the 120 Mackro

for the 645 AF. Is it ok for hand held portraiture and candid or too

heavy ? (835g) Any other comments are welcome.

You can use leaf shutter lens with the 645 Pro TL providing up to 1/500th second flash synchronisation. There are 2 or 3 available. I'm not sure if they allow for focal plane shutter use as well, someone else can answer that !

 

I have the 645 AF. I find the autofocus mostly annoying for portrait work as the depth of field is quite small. Unless your subject is perfectly still the autofocus is forever searching.

 

I've not had film flatness problems with either 120 or 220, but I tend to shoot the entire roll within a day or so. Perhaps if it stays in the RFH for longer periods you may experience problems, I can't say.

 

Regards, Steven

Gary

It seems that our prayers for more CFE lenses will be answered by Zeiss this Xmas.

Gary

As a prospective first time buyer of a 203 FE I couldn't agree with you more about the range (lack of) of CFE lenses. In fact I would say its the one point that's putting me off buying that platform as part of the reason for choosing it would be for the use of lenses like the CFi 180 and 120 macro.

 

I am astonished that Hasselblad are offering such huge discounts (45%)in the US off the 203 FE. I am reading that as "end of the line" for the product rather than seasonal promotion. Does anyone have other information about that ?

Thanks to all of you for the answers. Mark, I like your suggestion to set the ISO to 1 stop over and back again on the compensation. There seemed to be some confusion whether the compensation is transmitted to the Metz or not, but according to Mamiya it is. The only thing is that it cannot be set independently of the ambient compensation. Is that corrrect ?

 

So, if I want 2 stops flash compensation using NPS 160 for instance and I usually use 125 ISO for NPS 160 (for better colour saturation), using your example therefore I would set the ISO now to 200 ISO and then set the camera compensation to -2 and use flash in TTL mode .

 

I needed also to expose at 125th because of a 210mm telephoto and moving subject. Therefore I chose to meter using At priority

at 125th on the shadow areas behind the subject to see what aperture

to use.

 

In day light, is it better to use these values in exposure time priority with TTL flash as above, or is it worth setting it to X mode. I didn't understand finally if there is a difference in the final exposure of the film using X mode or exposure time priority at 125 (lets say for arguments sake that in both cases it would be 125 @ 9.5 either set automatically by the camera or by hand by me) when the flash is fired.

 

In the case where X mode is used in TTL the camera meters the flash,

but wouldn't this be the same in TTL mode and expsoure time priority ?

 

In Automatic mode (on the Metz) the Metz meters the flash but does not affect the exposure for ambient which is still dependent on the aperture / exposure setting of the camera, X mode or otherwise ?

 

If there is no difference as far as ambient exposure is concerned using either method, then I guess my problem is two fold, the first is correct metering of ambient, and the second is too much flash output.

 

For correct metering, is anyone else using this camera finding that negatives are consistently under exposed ?

 

For too much flash output, I see that the Metz has a partial output mode which I have tried, but I do not really understand if partial output is working correctly in TTL or automatic mode (Metz)

 

The Metz book says if I use the flash power of 1/256 this equates to 1/20000 of a second which has a guide number of 10 ft @ ISO 100.

 

As my subject is about 5 feet away is this near enough ? Does anyone else have experience of the partial output ? I guess if I use partial output mode, then the exposure compensation using higher ISO and under compensation on the camera becomes redundant ? Many thanks again.

My wife shoots with a little Olympus compact and gets pretty good

results with fill flash. I bought an expensive 645 AF with Metz 50

flash and get lousy results, consistently under exposed background and

overflashed subject.

 

The procedure I'm using is as follows :

 

The film if Fuji Reala, I'm shooting it at ISO 80 instead of 100.

I'm using spot metering on the darkest shades I would like exposed in

detail at 125th sec (fastest sync for flash)

 

The subject is at 1.5 meters, the subject is in shade on a bright day

with a little cloud, the final camera aperture is 9.5 according to

the metering procedure

 

I then set the camera at these settings in manual or X mode.

 

On the flash, I've set the Metz 50 to "automatic" and set the ISO to

80 as it's not possible to overide the aperture setting in TTL mode.

 

I set the aperture on the Metz to 1 stop less then the camera AND set

the partial output to 8 or 16.

 

The result I get is as described above and I don't understand why.

Even if the subject is overflashed I don't understand why the ambient

is not correctly exposed. The only thing I can think of is either the

645 meter is wildly optimistic (I don't seem to have this problem

when shooting without flash) or the Metz is affecting the exposure in

some way I don't understand. I had understood the only thing the Metz

can do is stop the flash output, so why is the ambient under exposed ?

 

I've also tried NPS 160 and NPH and get similar results.

 

Please help and embarrased novice whose wife asks why I spent all

this money, and she gets better results than I do.

 

All comments appreciated.

I bought the 645 AF in Nov 99 and I'm now on the 3rd body due to problems. On the 1st body continuous autofocus did what the name suggested , focussed continuously without stopping, even mounted on a tripod facing a static object. Single focus works ok. The second body

failed after one week when detaching the back, the dark curtain and mirror remained closed and down. It should open and flip up.

Because of this it was not possible to remove the dark slide anymore.

 

After using the bulb mode and then switch off and on the camera to force the curtain open, the dark slide could be reoved but the camera would no longer focus !!

 

Other gripes : The flash compensation CANNOT be set independently of the exposure compensation. This is highly irritating after buying the latest and greatest Metz 50 with TTL etc. Flash compensation has to be carried out manually if you want to do it properly.

 

So after 6 months ownership, its been in repair for 3 of them. Mamiya

may have come up with a nicely designed package including well designed lens but it seems there R&D didn't do a good job of testing it and completely overlooked the flash compensation. I don't find that very professional. There are cameras at half the price that don'y have these problems.