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 p.5 #12 · Mamiya ZD: First Impressions | |
Oh - and another possible misperception. Lenses longer than 300 - it was mentioned that there aren't any. There is a 2x extender which gets you to 600.
And on top of that - depending on what you are doing, you can use the manual focus lenses from the other Mamiya 645 lines. There are several of these manual focus lenses which are quite good:
300mm f/2.8 APO
500mm f/5.6
500mm f/4.5 APO
And with the 2x extender that gives you:
600mm f/5.6 APO
1000mm f/11
1000mm f/9 APO
And, depending on what you are using them for, autofocus isn't really used as the objects are at infinity anyhow. Depends on what you are shooting, though (of course!).
Oh - and people were saying very moderate and/or negative things about the 2 existing zooms (not the new one). I don't know if people really know Medium Format that well - and that seems to be the theme of this whole thread, that most of the pros/cons to moving from 5d or other has more to do with format than limitations of the ZD back.
The 2 Mamiya zooms are considered world class zooms - equal to the Hasselblad one! Most MF systems don't have any, Hassy had 1 a few years ago, don't know current situation (i.e., if they have a 2nd one now). Zooms in MF are not normal. For example, see this page,
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/back-testing.shtml
"I was shocked to see that—in my opinion, none was clearly superior to any of the others! There are subtle differences, and arguments can be made in favor of one or the other. But they are so close that I am now quite content with my Mamiya. (After all, I'm the only one with a second zoom lens—a 105 to 210mm!)"
and "Bill Atkinson and I have done a few comparisons of the Mamiya 55-110mm zoom and Hasselblad 50-110mm zoom , and didn't find any significant differences between those lenses, either (in one test, we preferred the Mamiya!)"
In terms of tested lines/mm the longer zoom is much sharper - so that shows great opportunity between the 2!
I think what it really does is - you can take both zooms, maybe the 35 as well, and just go with that - whereas normally in MF you normally have to take like 15 lbs of lenses to cover the same range.
So - remember, zooms are an anamoly in MF, not the norm.
And for focusing - AF in MF is also relatively new. People bark at the 645afdII focus times - for MF they are considered quite good. None of the focusing abilities in MF are considered on par with 35mm - this is across the board! I assume that the latest Hassy, version 3, may have focusing on par with 35 mm, but my goodness do you pay for it!!
And, fwiw, the 300mm lense with its IF system is amazing. Probably faster/smoother than some of the much smaller lenses and perhaps on par with any 35mm lenses that aren't IF. I am really impressed with the 300 all the way around.
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. I don't know if people realize how sharp the 120mm macro lense is. Can one of the new purchasers of the system add that lense - go take some headshots and report back? The 120mm macro lense, across MF in general is considered one of the sharpest/best lenses that there is. In fact, some people who use it for portraits have to add grain or whatever, because its so sharp you can see too many imperfections, and there are various threads here and there about how to post-process 120mm macro pics to make them less sharp. Now what kind of problem is that to have!!! My lense is too sharp... Hmmm...
