tony_cunningham

Marc - Just over a year ago you asked if anyone had used the Pentax 645 600/5.6 EDIF lens. Did you purcahse it? I would be curious to know how you got on with it.

Thanks ........ Tony

I have decided to sell my Canon 35mm system and use the P645 as a

reserve body for my P67 and for macro and telephoto work in future

plus get a Pentax 35mm body for the few occasions where I might need

35mm. This raises a couple of questions relating to P67 lenses that I

might want to use with the 645 and 35mm.

Searching the Pentax web sites (Europe and UK) I was amazed by their

inaccuracy and omissions. On the European site the now not so new

75/2.8 that has been so well received is not even mentioned on the

lens table. Nor is the newer 300/4 EDIF. It is a similar story for

the 645 lenses. There is also no real technical information on flash

for these cameras � no size for the macro ring flash etc. I am

looking for basic information like size, weight and closest focussing

distance of the lenses. Does anyone know of a site with comprehensive

info on what is available now new?

 

For macro I seem to have 3 choices P67 100/4, P645 120/4, P645 FA

120/4. Should I go for the P67 100/4? This looks like a versatile

option for use on all 3 bodies and as a general 100mm lens without

the insert. Anybody tried it like this, particularly on the 645? Is

there any point in the autofocus on the P645 FA 120/4? I would always

focus macro manually anyhow.

 

Does anyone know if the P67 165/4 LS lens will work on the P645 �

just as an ordinary lens? I read somewhere that the 90 LS does not.

 

Then I am wondering about tele lenses in the 300 and 400 mm range. I

have read the old posts on these lenses and get the impression that

the P67 300/4 EDIF might not be worth the extra cost.

The choices for 300mm are P 67 300/4 old and P67 300/4 EDIF and P645

FA 300/4 EDIF, P645 FA 300/5.6 EDIF and P645 300/4 EDIF manual focus.

The P67 300/4 old seems attractive financially. Is the P67 300/4 EDIF

really usable at f4? Unfortunately I can find no information on its

weight, size or close focussing distance on Pentax site tables.

Then the 400mm lenses with the P67 400/4 EDIF and the P645 FA 400/5.6

EDIF. This is a much easier choice, because of the P67 400/4 EDIF

being almost 4x as expensive and 3x heavier than the alternative.

Does anyone know if the P645 FA 400/5.6 EDIF is useable at f5.6? I

suppose a third alternative is a second hand old P67 400mm � I have

read Steve�s comments about that.

 

Does anyone know where I can get detailed technical info on the use

of flash with the Pentax 645?

Thanks ���. Tony

Hunter - The peg is a sight like a gun sight as someone suggested earlier. It is handy for locating moving objects before you look through the viewfinder. Otherwise you can pan around for ages before you find the subject with such a powerful lens.

When I first read your posting I thought that I could not help you, because I do not have a manual. Then I realized that there is probably no such thing, so you might spend a long time looking. Pentax issues a general booklet that covers most lenses and what there is on the 600 is in this or the relevant body manual. It is not much and what there is I could e-mail to you if you like. The main thing is to be sure you understand how to fit it to the body. I have a lasting memory of looking up at my tripod to see my 67 body falling to the ground after I had 'securely' mounted the lens. I just managed to catch it before it hit the concrete (bruised fingers).

Scott - following up on Gene's comments I have some not very scientific observations. I usually use a heavy tripod with the P67 and press the camera down, as well as damping it with a heavy rice bag. I have tended to ignore any material that was taken hand-held. Last week I scanned in some transparancies at 3200 dpi that were taken in China a few years ago. These were all hand-held with the old 75mm.

 

I was astonished at how sharp they were. I had previously scanned a large batch of 6x9s taken with the Fuji rangefinders that I now use for lightweight travel and all handheld work (sorry Steve!).

 

The handheld 6x7s were clearly sharper than the handheld 6x9s. Weather conditions were sunny and ISO 100 film was used in both cases. Shutter speeds would have been mostly 1/125 sec.

 

I will test this again carefully using identical subjects, films, film batches, weather conditions, shutter speeds, labs and camera holding techniques. It might just be that I am not good at using the rangefinder focussing system, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Which model would you recommend for the P67 system?

Mark - thanks for your comment, but I have just realized that I have missed out quite an important bit of information. My scanner is an Imacom Flextight Precision II. That was improved by version III introduced about 18 months ago, but this offered litle advantage to 6x7 users. More recently Imacon have introduced a new scanner. Sorry I can't remember the model, but it is 4 times faster that the Precision II and III and more importantly is said to provide significantly better scanning results. It is also cheaper. I remember seeing a Precision in 1998 and Velvia was around in 1990, if not much earlier. So if Reichmann was using his Precision II (if I remember correctly he was) he was comparing 5 year old scanning technology and 10 to 15 year old film technology with the very latest in digital - perhaps not the best basis to make a decision.

Just to follow up on Steve's comment, I have also been reading bits on Reichmann's site for a while. I think his work is probably accurate, but it does not always tell the whole story. I have been using the 600mm Takumar since 1999 for landscape work and have also not seen the longitudinal chromatic aberration/color fringing effect to any irritating extent, but then I don't photograph window frames on multi-story buildings. Reichmann did indicate a neat software partial solution to this problem, but I have never needed to explore it.

 

> His tests are not useless, but one has to realize that they are short term in some cases.

 

Not so much short term Steve, but limited in scope. He appears with a new piece of equipment - praises it - and within six months has dumped it for something else. The reasons may well be quite sound, but they may not relate at all to the work you yourself do.

 

Another example is the Imacon Flextight II scanner. He praised this only a year or so ago as the ultimate desktop scanner. He showed examples of scans compared to other medium format scanners and the Imacon was clearly good. He did not mention any disadvantages. Now suddenly the Imacon is not looking so good. I have that scanner and am quite happy with it for scanning P67 transparancies. It produces good 170 Mb scans from 6x7, that can be printed to 28 x 23 inches at 300 dpi. I wonder how that Canon digital camera will perform at that size? Do you need that size? Well only you (or your customers) can say. Here again to be fair Reichman is perfectly honest - he is talking about single page spreads on standard paper - although he does mention that someone else is doing double page spreads. What about prints for exhibitions etc?

 

Another related issue already mentioned is choice of film. I would not have used Velvia at that time of day or for that subject. Nor would I have chosen it for any comparitive test. I would rather have used a neutral film. After poor service from Fuji UK following a faulty 6x9 rangefinder I have been looking at Kodak films for the first time in years and guess what - some of them scan very well on the Imacon. Very clean, minimal noise. Could it be that Kodak's advertising about developing their latest films for scanning is not just hype? So here again perhaps Reichmann has not explored all the options.

 

Another point is that he chose the 'pro' Canon digital body and not the D60 for his test. I thought the D60 had a much higher resolution, but could not photograph as fast. I would have been very interested to seen the much cheaper D60 tested. Incidentally I hear that this camera is being withdrawn after only a few months on the market. Too much competition for the 'pro' version perhaps?

 

If you follow Reichman's site regularly and try to keep up with him you will have to be very rich or you will soon be broke. Also you will probably go nuts, because you will never own a piece of equipment for long enough to learn how to use it. Ask Steve how long it took him to get the best out of that 600 mm lens. I bet the answer will be at least 5 times longer than Reichman owned his.

 

If you follow his advice to the letter, be prepared to read, just 6 months later, why you made a very expensive mistake. By the way I think his site is a fantastic source of information and if you read between the lines and apply his knowledge carefully to your own situation it can be very useful.

I have flown from Amsterdam carrying film many time over the last 10 years and have not noticed any more or less problems than anywhere else. The last time was 6 weeks ago and unusually for me I let some 120 film pass through the hand baggage check. This was ISO 50 and ISO 100 transparancy film. This was later checked and exposed again as hand baggage at an Italian airport on the way to my final destination. All photos taken with these irradiated films were fine as far as I could tell.

 

I also had some ISO 400 transparancy film and ISO 400 and 800 negative film (120) with me and carried them in my pockets. These went through without upsetting the alarm in Amsterdam, but later in Italy they were picked up by a much better security system, but they were allowed them through without being X-rayed, following careful visual inspection (very professional). In the baggage that was checked-in I put a selection of films from ISO 50 to 800 in a lead film bag. These all seemed to be ok.

 

I write on each film how many times it has been exposed and the conditions (e.g. in lead bag or not) and if it gets to more than 2x with ISO 50 and 100, I am very careful that I don't use those films for critical applications. For the faster films I accept a single exposure and then use the film for testing purposes.

 

I do not know if the power of the X-ray machines in Amsterdam is higher than anywhere else, but on an earlier filght last year the hand-baggage was checked twice in Amsterdam.

Allan - interesting comment about the Mamiya. I actually asked Robert Watson if I might not be better switching to the Mamiya 7 and that was when they commented that most makes were having problems - and from what you say also with manufacturing, not just with service. I agree with what you say about Watson, they are very good. I did not return the Fuji for a third time, because they had pushed Fuji to get it repaired for a shoot in Italy. I took it with me and it worked fine, so it has now taken about 80 films. My problem will be if I try to sell it.

 

Sorry about the divergence from the main subject of this forum, but I though it might be of interest to any of you thinking of dropping Pentax. By the way I purchased the Fuji rangefinders, because I cannot live with 1/30 sec flash sync and need LS versions of the 90 mm and 55 mm lenses. The lens I most enjoy using of any I have ever had on any system is the 165 LS, but I will not purchase a 25 year old 90 LS!

 

Incidentally I have had two P67 bodies, one very old with no MLU and one quite new. The prism meter fell/falls off both of them when used in the portrait mode.

Steve - Kelly is right what you are referring to is the ISO 9000 series quality assurance hype. This seems to me to have had little or nothing to do with customer requirements or expectations, just money making by the approval bodies. I have direct experience (not photography related) of taking justified customers� complaints to a factory manager and being told. �We have ISO 9001 approval and cannot make mistakes�. The answer to the question: Was the product checked? was �No, of course not, it is not necessary�.

 

> There is still some inspection and test done, especially in optics.

 

Well perhaps Leica are still doing some QC, but I wonder how many others are. My Pentax (UK) repair experience has been good up to now, in spite of the stories, but I bought a new Fuji GW 670 (with 90 mm lens) from Robert White earlier this year. It had a large air bubble between the front elements. It could never have been given even the most cursory manual or automatic QC check. Robert White changed it at once for a GW 690 that they had in stock. This lasted 40 films of careful use and the shutter mechanism jammed. Firstly Fuji (UK) apparently tried to get out of a repair under warranty and later, after weeks of waiting, and a lot of pressure from Robert White, they carried out a hasty repair. The inside of the camera now looks as if has been attacked by a cat and there is considerable dust clearly visible inside the rear elements. The camera does work OK though and I have not dared to let Fuji get near it again. However this camera, still just a few months old, will have virtually zero value on the second-hand market.

 

A Fuji GSW 690 (with 60 mm lens) purchased at the same time is fine, so I suppose it is a lottery.

 

Having heard about the Pentax problems I asked Robert White if they could recommend any manufacturers of professional MF equipment that could both supply and maintain quality. I had expected a response like buy Brand X, but the response was that there is a shortage of camera technicians and that at least for repair, many / most of the big names seem to be suffering quality problems. So don�t be too quick to dump Pentax!

 

My ideal supplier of new photographic equipment (or anything else) would state �NOT ISO 9000 APPROVED� on its products. I wonder if Leica meet this requirement? Hasselblad perhaps do not, as Fuji seem to be making much of their equipment these days!

Steve - agree with you 100%.

Mark - there are a couple of points in your last posting that I don't necessarily agree with. Firstly you say that MF telephoto lenses are more expensive than 35 mm. Have you actually checked the comparative costs of Nikon and Pentax say 600 mm (or 300 mm) lenses with a P67 600 mm lens. Certainly if you check this out for second hand you will find an enormous difference in favor of Pentax 67 and I suspect also new. I could comfortably afford a second hand P67 600 mm and could not even dream of such a lens for my Canon. Also I can use the P67 600 on a Pentax 35 mm body and the Pentax 67 lens is smaller and lighter that the Nikon and Canon equivalents.

 

Also the cost comparison (for me at least) per photo of 35 mm film and 120 film comes out well in favour of medium format. I average one saleable picture per two 35 mm films and around two per 120 film. This is a very complex issue though and it depends very much what you photograph and how and will vary tremendously per photographer.

 

Advantages of MF are that if you get the composition wrong you have much more space to crop. Many of my not quite good enough 6x7s end up as reasonable 645s or even 35 mm. With 35 mm I am ruthless and if it is not perfect I throw it away.

Filibert,

 

I have exactly the problem you describe with the p67 body and 45, 75 and 165 LS lenses. I assume it is related to dirty contacts and clean everything each time I use the camera. Sometimes this helps, but not always. It is not battery related. Often the meter starts working after a few minutes, but not always. I have stopped using the meter as my primary light measuring device. A pity because it was quite accurate for transparancies.

I have a 77mm filter I obtained some years ago with a Pentax 67 75mm

lens. It is marked F-1734 77x0,75. It looks clear and is probably a

UV filter. The only other mark on it is a logo that looks like a bird

flying over a trapezium. Ca anyone identify what this is please? The

x0,75 is strange, it can hardly be the filter factor!

Steve - what do you mean about not the same quality as the 67? The actual photographic quality or the feel of the body or....... If the photos are not good quality it is presumably a problem with the adapter, because the lenses are ok and so are the 35mm bodies?

The reason I ask is that I was about to ask what would be the best Pentax 35mm body to use with 67 lenses.

 

My purpose was to keep a 35mm body permanently fixed on the 600mm with a film permanently in place for just the reason you describe in a recent posting. Those completely unexpected moments - the falcon, unexpected animals, aircraft etc. I don't do this with the 67 for several reasons, including possible film distortion and I hate having the wrong film in when I need it for something else. I reckon I miss 4 or 6 good photos per month just by not being ready. Also the 35mm should be more forgiving regarding mirror or shutter shake, especially when there is not time to get yourself sorted out. I cut many of my 67s taken with the 600 down to 35mm anyway.

 

There are other advantages such as a wider choice of film for certain purposes and the relatively small size, weight and of course cost of the combination - yes I mean it. Have a look at the 600mm lenses for modern 35mm cameras.

Albano - you might be surprised by this answer, but I think the oldest body was heavier than the next model, this made it more stable hand held. Also hand holding damps some of the vibration. I used to use mine a lot hand held and never had any problems. I would rarely use speeds slower than 1/125 though. You may run into problems with the slower films.

 

You cannot realistically use the MLU hand held anyway, so for your hand held work this body should be ok, assuming it is in good condition. I have heard that Pentax won't service this body anymore in some countries, but am not sure if that is true.

 

I do like the MLU on a tripod and rarely used my old body on a tripod. When I did for landscapes I shut down the lens and used very long exposures - covering the lens by hand and counting the exposure.

 

In the studio I used (and still do) the 165 LS mostly to avoid the 1/30 shutter speed. Depends what you will photograph.

 

So don't be too worried about the old body, it could be fine.

 

Some old 105s are good and some are not. You will have to decide for yourself. Mine was razor sharp, but with a yellow cast.

My old 105 also has a 'built-in yellow filter'. Quite handy for black and white, but not so good with colour slides! I only purchase new lenses for this system nowadays.

Anthony - a critical question is what do you intend to use it for? If you want to photograph white window frames and carry it in your pocket it is far from ideal. I use mine for landscape and it is fine. F4 is handy for composing and focussing, but I use f11 and f16 for almost everything. I am not even fully happy with it at f8.

 

I am neither large, strong, young or fit, but don't have any problem carrying it around. It is a very heavy lens though and you have to get used to it. The main problem is carrying it and a sufficiently heavy tripod. I replace the tripod with a rice bag when I am more than 500 yards from the car and carry the lens/body combination in a rucksack. It is actually not as big as a Nikon 600 mm.

 

I have never seen any sign of the chromatic aberation that is reported, but it is probably not evident in the type work I do. It is very soft wide open and has an irritating habit of slipping out of foucus when pointed upwards. I paid less than $1500 second hand and am not complaining.

Can anyone recommend a good book on scanning? My main interest is high quality scanning of MF although I do also use 35 mm occasionally.

Hi - I am finding it quite difficult to make a decision on an

exposure meter for use in the following circumstances:

Films: Mostly slide - Velvia, 100F and 400F (no B&W and no color neg).

Main camera: Fuji 6x9 rangefinder.

Subjects: mostly landscape and external architecture.

Use of flash: occasional fill-in.

Current meters: Old Pentax analog spot, old Gossen incident and

incident flash meter.

Other factors: Size is not critical, but a bit smaller that the old

Pentax would be appreciated.

 

My Pentax spot meter fell apart - hence the need for some action.

Reading through the threads in this and other Groups I had more or

less decided that the Minolta spot F was best for me, but there seem

to be some interesting new alternatives, particularly from Gossen and

Sekonic. Any advice appreciated..........Tony

David - for hand held use at high shutter speeds I actually preferred

the original body without mirror lock up. I have no experience in an

aircraft, but would have thought 1/500 and 1/1000 would be ok.

Looks interesting. I get the idea, but has anyone got an English

translation of this site or have I missed something?

 

<p>

 

At www.zoerk.com there are also some related products, also

expensive. I have never managed to contact anyone who has used these

adaptors on a P67.

 

<p>

 

Perhaps it would be easier just to buy a view camera!

Steve - A Dutch photo mag recently gave a this lens a positive

review. They are usually fairly critical. They talk about minimal

distortion at either end of the zoom range. Good performance at 90 mm

wide open and a vague lighter area in the image center at 180 mm wide

open. For best quality shut down 2 stops. It has half stops between

f8 and f32. Filter size is 95 mm, so it is provided with a gelatine

filter holder. They would have liked to see it focus closer than 1.2

m, but comment that in practice it is fine for studio portraits. They

conclude that it is a good purchase for a relatively small investment.

On a recent trip to London from Brussels by Eurostar train all my

film was subjected to X-ray examination. It was "Put them through the

machine or don't travel". I only had ISO 50 and 100 films with me and

could discern no damage after processing.

 

<p>

 

Curiously I returned through the tunnel a by car and experienced no

type of security check.

 

<p>

 

Tony C

Steve - There certainly is a need for this lens as far as I am

concerned. I use the old 75 mm as a standard lens, almost always from

a tripod, because it performs optimally at f11. This new lens is said

to be very good at f5.6 and usable at f2.8.

 

<p>

 

This means handheld use is possible more often for those situations

where it is not practical or possible at the moment.

 

<p>

 

Tony