paul_wilson2

Yes, unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to do. Besides, you'd lose the main advantage of the 6 which is the collapsible mount.

 

As for the SWC, my experience is that the 43 is slightly sharper and has the advantage of a rangefinder to focus with.

If you're only going to use this camera for B&W landscapes, personally, I'd look at something like the Horseman 612, Paq Pro or possibly a 6x9 field camera like a Horseman VHR. You might even consider a 4x5 field camera with a rollfilm back.

 

However, the Mamiya has many other advantages over those which might work for other types of photography you do. It's certainly lighter and faster to use and all the lenses are beyond reproach IMO.

 

I've used a Fuji 6x9. The lens seemed quite good to me and I liked the aspect ratio and 28mm equivelent lens. However, I'd rather have more flexibility than that. The rangefinder was nowhere near as good as the Mamiya's.

I used to own a Mamiya 6MF and now own a 7II. I've never used the Bronica RF but have played around with it at a camera show.

 

First off, from a quality perspective there's little difference between the lenses on the Mamiya 6 and 7. All the ones I've used were excellent (this includes all 3 for the 6 and the 43, 80 and 150 for the 7). I moved to the 7II because I wanted the 43mm and I prefer the 4x5 crop.

 

My impressions of the Bronica were that it's a bit more solid than the Mamiya and the controls are nicer (auto dark slide when removing a lens, etc). Like Doug said, it's quite sophisticated for what it is. If they had made a 6x7 version of it, I would have been seriously tempted to change. However, I'd rather have the bigger film area, greater lens selection and default landscape orientation that the 7II has.

 

Holding any of these cameras vertically (which gives landscape on the Bronica) is a bit of a pain. So take that into consideration.

 

Also, you're concerned with the 6's winder and that's valid. However, Bronica is completely out of business and I don't know how you'd get one serviced. Maybe Tamron still services them but I'm not sure.

 

In short, I don't think you can go too far wrong with any of them. If you want more shots per roll and don't mind the default portrait orientation, get the Bronica. If you want square, get the M6 and search for the newest one you can find. If you want the safest buy, get the 7II.

Excellent, thanks Douglas.

First off, sorry if this has been answered but the search utility doesn't reveal

much.

 

How is the Salton Sea area for birds in late September/early October? I'm going

to be there at this time and there's plenty of other things to photograph but

I'm wondering if it's worth bringing the big lens also.

 

Thanks.

As far as L plates for the M7 are concerned, I think the Kirk L plate is much better than the RRS. It's fitted to the M7 whereas the RRS plate is generic. Both companies make great stuff but in this case, the Kirk is better.

 

The Mamiya 7 produces very little vibration and works fine on a lighter tripod. I have both a Gitzo 1228 and a 1348 and the 1228 is plenty for the M7. I use an Arca B1 but I'd buy an RRS BH55 if I were getting one now.

Hi Ken,

 

I had a 508 and sold it to get a 758. I mostly wanted the LCD in the viewfinder. Overall, I don't find a huge difference between the two. I did find that both need to be calibrated.

For my day job, I'm a director of a team that manages many, many terabytes of data over many, many servers in MS's big database server. That runs on Windows 2K3 which shares a lot with XP. At home, I have a desktop that runs XP and a server that has 2K3. I'm also on my second Apple laptop which is a 13" Macbook (used to own a 12" Powerbook).

 

So, given all that, I wouldn't touch Vista with a 10' pole and if I were forced to used it, I'd be shutting a lot of the features off. Many of them look utterly useless to me. I think XP is perfectly fine for most uses including digital photography.

 

To add to my complicated opinion, my next desktop machine will likely be a MacPro. I like OSX and I don't have to fix it as often (not that XP is bad in this regard).

Their site has a lot of missing links under Firefox. If you use either IE or Safari, you'll find the forums.

I honestly don't get why you're distrustful of DSLR's. I have a D200 and I think it's great. I can't see ever going back to 35mm film except for maybe a nice rangefinder.

 

That said, I also have a Mamiya 7II with a few lenses. I love that thing as much as one can love an inanimate object. I also used to own a 6MF and the 50 and 150 lenses on that were just as good (the 150 lens is the same in the two systems but with a different, incompatible mount).

 

Part of the question you have to answer about print differences is how good is your scanner. If you're scanner isn't good enough with medium format, an M6 might not be worthwhile.

 

You should also consider that Mamiya can no longer repair the winders on these cameras. I'd recommend either a 6MF or a regular 6 that has A and AE marked on the shutter speed dial.

You have some seemingly conflicting requirements. To my mind, landscape doesn't really = close focusing (well, not that close) or handholding.

 

Anyway, the Mamiya 7 is probably one of the easiest cameras to handhold ever made.

A nice pair of Fiskars scissors.

I should also mention that I have the 43, 80 and 150 lenses. All are excellent (especially the shorter two) but I only rarely use the 150.

Like Stuart, I use my M7II for almost all B&W work and I primarily use Delta 100 processed by DR5. I use a Sekonic 508 (to be replaced by a 758) for metering. I also have a Minolta Multi pro for scanning and I have an old Linhof/Cabin projector. I really love the Mamiya.

<p>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3437621-md.jpg">

<p>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/4275810-md.jpg">

Mamiya 7II: not flexible but what it does it does extremely well. Lenses as good as everyone says.

 

The point is, are more reviews really necessary? I can find pretty much anything I need to know on any MF camera on this or various other sites.

The 65mm frameline is shown when there is no lens on the camera. So, if you mount the 80 and the frameline doesn't change, you have a problem. I'd try another 80mm lens first if that's possible.

The question that comes to my mind is could film cameras have gotten better if they kept evolving. Looking at the Nikon F5 and F6 tells me, not really. All the new MF cameras (Hassy H series and the new Hy6) all take fim backs.

Bob, I'm no EE but the type of motor needed for moving a mirror could be a lot smaller and more easily packaged than the one need for a film transport. A servo like used in a hard drive (for the actuator arm) or something like a solenoid could be used.

I suspect that Zeiss themselves can't really make AF lenses themselves. Contax had AF Zeiss lenses but Kyocera probably designed the electronics and AF mechanisms.

Paul, there is no earlier version of the Multi Pro. There is an old Minolta Scan Multi or whatever that does ~1200 dpi. Certainly it's nowhere near as good as the Nikon 9000. The Minolta Multi Pro does 3200 dpi for MF and 4800 for 35mm. It's a totally different scanner.

I started about 8 years ago with a Pentax 67 because I wanted more detail in landscapes. I quickly realized carrying the thing was going to be a serious problem. I also was leary of a system that would tempt me to buy too much stuff.

 

I sold it and bought a Mamiya 6 a few months later. The 6 suited my purposes well in terms of carrying it and keeping the system small. I used it for a year or so and realized I preferred a rectangular image so I eventually sprang for a 7II (thanks Robert White). I've had the 7II for almost 7 years and have no intentions of selling it even though I use a Nikon D200 for most things now.

I stand corrected on the Nikon 9000 though I haven't shot Kodachrome in a long time.

 

Ilkka, I primarily used Delta 100 with DR5 which is a combo I like a lot. I've also used Scala in DR5 which was also good but Delta 100 seems to be easier to scan. I want to try Plus-X in DR5 though.

Walter, have you scanned mounted medium format slides? If so, how? The holder has no way to insert a mounted slide that I know of.

Why would you buy a Coolscan 9000 unless you were definitely going to be scanning medium format? It's no better at scanning 35mm than a Nikon 5000 or Minolta 5400 but costs a lot more. If you plan on definitely going to medium format, then get the medium format scanner.

 

In any event, I have a Nikon D200 and I like digital just fine but I also have a Mamiya 7 and use DR5 quite a bit. I really love the results.

Projected MF slides look incredible. I don't have experience projecting 6x6 but I do with 6x7 which is essentially the same except 6x6 has more projector options.

 

First off, you need to buy 6x6 slide mounts and mount the slides yourself. I use Gepe glass mounts. Mounting the slides is a bit fiddly but not too hard. Some lintless gloves would help. You do it by hand, not with a machine.

 

Theoretically, a glass slide mount would work well to scan from except that the CP9000 doesn't have an appropriate holder. Neither does any other MF capable scanner that I'm aware of.