Spring and summer are fast approaching and this year I've decided to take the plung into medium format. My widest 135 format lens is 35mm and instead of doubling up on focal lengths I've decided to choose a MF set up that would compliment my 35,50,90,&135mm primes. In comes my top two contenders: the 38mm Hasselblad SWC and the Mamiya 7 with the 43mm lens.
I've been leaning towards the Hasselblad for a while now but the potential for adding more lenses the my kit is also appealing. The major downside with the Mamiya seems to be close focusing. I was wondering if anyone (hopefully you) could post images taken with the 43mm on the Mamiya 7 at the minimum focus distance. I believe it's about 3 feet; I'm just trying to get a feel for what that looks like.
Any additional comments regarding a comparison between both systems is also appreciated.
Thanks,
Peter
p.s. square vs. rectangle is of no consequence to me.
I hope that helps. Anyway I owned a Mamiya 7 and sold it fairly quickly. I still maintain that it's an expensive bit of kit given the way it feels to use. And frankly, I think the SWC is a really cool camera, it's got a great lens and you can focus on ground glass with it.
The thing is, the 80mm I used was most likely the best lens I've ever used in any system in any format all things considered. I hear the 43mm is equally spectacular. So if you can live with a 1m MFD (I could not) and you don't mind your multi-thousand dollar setup feels to be of approximately the same quality as a 80s consumer Nikon I do think it's actually the best system. If you could get the camera and lens for the price of a Pentax 67 Id have honestly sold my Leica then and there.
luminosity wrote:
Why would you want to be focusing so close with a lens like the 43mm?
I always liked the exaggerated perspective of close focused photos of the Zeiss 21/2.8 in 135 format. I'm not sure if I'd really need to focus closer than 3 feet which is the reason I made this thread. Seeing some examples of the minimum focus distance in the real would may help me decide.
Don't have a lot of images at minimum focus, but as you already know, close focus is not the strong suit of the 7. Here are two, one portrait with the 65 at about five feet or so and another a couple more feet out with the 43mm. I pretty much treat my Mamiya as a wide angle to normal focal length medium format Leica with extraordinary lenses.
Mamiya 7, 65mm wide open, Tri-X
Fiat in the Santa Monica Mountains, Mamiya 7 43mm f/11
Johnny B Goode wrote:
I always liked the exaggerated perspective of close focused photos of the Zeiss 21/2.8 in 135 format. I'm not sure if I'd really need to focus closer than 3 feet which is the reason I made this thread. Seeing some examples of the minimum focus distance in the real would may help me decide.
If you want wide angle and close-focus ability, the Mamiya RZ 50mm ULD has a floating element and benefits from more precise framing/focussing as the RZ is an SLR.
The bellows focus of the RZ lets you get very close indeed. It might even be cheaper, a used RZ and used 50 ULD, than the 43mm itself.
The RZ is also like twice the size of an SWC and at least 1.5 times the size of the Mamiya.
The largest camera Ive ever carried around for an entire day was a Bronica SQ-a with a metered prism. That camera is significantly smaller than the RZ67 and it was still less than pleasant. While it's a spectacular studio and tripod camera, even at 24 I wouldn't call it realistic to just go out with a RZ67 walking and if I'm bringing the tripod I'm probably bringing the 4x5. Actually it's funny but an RZ67 with the WLF and the 110 weighs as much as my Sinar F monorail and isn't that much smaller given that I can fold my camera up.
Anyway my point is NOT to suggest that the RZ67 is not a great camera, it's just that I think the OP is looking for something he can just take with him and shoot some UWA on 120 and the Mamiya 7 AND SWC are great cameras for that specifically.
I have had both the SWC/M 38mm and the Mamiya 7II with 43 and 50mm lenses. I honestly think the 50mm was the best lens of the bunch. All three are fantastic though. The 43mm for close up? Nah, I was not that thrilled by it. Of the three lenses the 43 was my least favorite.
For "close up work" I think the Hassy is better. I love the Superwide and it has a certain character that I miss at times. My SWC/M is still with me though it has been a few years since I fed it any film.
I have both the Mamiya 7 43mm and the 50mm lenses. Both are very sharp. The 43 may well have a slight amount more distortion than the 50. The lenses for the Mamya 7/7II are some of the finest medium format lenses ever made. The camera handles much like a large Leica M camera. I have never used either the 43mm or the 50mm lenses for close-up. Here is one hand held using the 43mm lens.
The camera works particularly well on a tripod with an L bracket. Unfortunately Kirk discontinued theirs, but RRS has a Universal L bracket that should work.
AhamB wrote:
With bellows, perhaps, although it will probably be a DIY project. RZ lenses don't have focusing helicoids. Thank you, Wilco.
I agree with Aham. Due to the bellows focus system of the RZ, the lenses don't lend themselves to (easy) use on any other system. But by the time you are talking about 6x7 format lenses on a 35mm or APS camera, size and weight are divorcing themselves from practicality, when there are other options available.
But the characteristics of what you see in that image are probably in large part do to it being such 6x7 format with close-focus ability. It's possible that the 24mm lens like the TS-E on a Canon might yield similar results, but I haven't tried.
The 50mm was released late, perhaps after Mamiya realised how popular the small M7 system was becoming, there are few of them around. The 43mm is great, they all are...the 65mm was a fabulous allrounder, being about 32mm equivalence in 35mm photography.
Lens tests see the MTF going through the roof for most of these lenses...I felt the 43mm was the flashy member, like an f1.2 lens in 35mm shooting. It is very wide for the aspect ratio of 4:5, you better have plenty of foreground interest.
With near normal FLs, leaf shutters, great ergonomics and handholdability, portability better than a pro C/N digital, very quiet operation, superb smoothness of the shutter release, rear elements ultra close to the film plane - so close you had to check used lenses for defects there as they often were damaged in lens changes - every Mamiya 7 user should invest in a.......Sony RX1! Or RX2 perhaps, as yet a dream or prototype on the drawing boards in Sony HQ.
Some great ideas get reborn anew every so often.
'Anyway my point is to suggest that the RZ67 is not a great camera..'
This is referred to in the literature as a 'Freudian slip' ;-)
The 65mm lens is also extremely sharp. If you are careful, you can also even use soft edged ND filters with the camera if you guess correctly where to drop the graduation.
I used the 65mm lens and a Singh-Ray 2 stop soft ND filter on Fujichrome Velvia 100 film.
