Sounds like a plan. My goal by then is to have at lest 1 lens that JC doesn't (I sold all my Leicas just before he got into them) so he can borrow from me to test vs the other way around for once ;>
Lets see, what you could have borrowed had your Leica lust kicked-in earlier (I might be forgetting 1-2):
28/2.8 latest (2x - legend is deserved, Nikon 28/2.8 Ais just as sharp in center)
35/2 (think you have - might replace it as very nice - preferred it over the ZF 35)
50/2 (one of the best 50s out there. The 50 Lux in M mount is amazing but ...The CV 58 is still my preference. Will get again when comes out in Eos - or I shift to Nikon)
60 Macro (NICE lens - scored for $100 and great IQ. Large bang/$$ if you can find one)
80 Lux (2x - NICE lens, known for stiffer focus, replaced with 80/1.9 M645)
90AA (2x - legendary of course, but CV 90 APO just as sharp and clear at comparable apertures with better bokeh - and better APO corrected. Now that CV90 is in EoS - is on my short list).
90/2,8 (last version - GREAT glass, a less expensive 100 APO -- actually has higher photodo rating than the macro. One I might get again)
180/2.8 APO (stellar, but VERY fast focusing - too fast for some. To justify the $$, need one that takes the 1.4x, most, by far, don't). The CV 180 and Mamiya 200 APOs are VERY close.
180/2 APO (stellar again and best FAT lens for hand hold usage I've ever used. Think $5000 APO MF version of your 200/1.8. The fast Nikon or Canon 200s seem to be as nice from what I can tell)
Courtesy of a Leicaphile in Halifax also managed to get an extended try of a modified 19mm II (mirror hung on 1Ds2 - shame because $%^& sharp), 90/2 (never took to it, preferred the 80 Lux), 100 APO (it's a legend for a reason, but 120/4 is very close. 100 has a more Zeiss-like level of contrast and saturation than typical Leica) and 180/3.4 APO - nice at distance, up close is APO version of Nikon 180.
Lets just say the courier folks and post office employees and I were well known to one another... ;>
If I were to lust after any big $$ Leica lens - it would be the 280/4 APO. Considered the sharpest R lens Leica ever made.
Amazing glass, some with no peers, but others can be replaced (and were) with equally as good glass from the likes of CV, Mamiya, etc. For the high-end Leica's, sometimes that extra 5% is worth the large $$ jump, but sometimes you're paying a lot for the name - especially if you think outside the usual alt suspects (CY, Z_) and look at CV, M645 and others outside the current alt mindset.
I'm thinking of buying mamiya sekor 110/2.8 C which I found on our local auction portal quite cheap. I know it's not as popular as other mamiya lenses like: 80/1.9, 120/4.0 or 150/2.8. I presume that the resaon may be (at least for some part) its availability. But anyway, how would you compare this lens to other mamiya lenses in terms of image quality, bokeh, CA etc. I will appreciate any comments.
AL Shooter wrote:
I'm thinking of buying mamiya sekor 110/2.8 C which I found on our local auction portal quite cheap. I know it's not as popular as other mamiya lenses like: 80/1.9, 120/4.0 or 150/2.8. I presume that the resaon may be (at least for some part) its availability. But anyway, how would you compare this lens to other mamiya lenses in terms of image quality, bokeh, CA etc. I will appreciate any comments.
Robert
I have one and it is an outstanding performer! Very sharp with great color.Also it is one of the smaller Mamiya lenses.Here are a few shots that i have taken with mine.
-Jim
Conner999 wrote:
80 Lux (2x - NICE lens, known for stiffer focus, replaced with 80/1.9 M645)
Curious about this. I know the Leica isn't one of the sharpest wide open, but do they really compare at similar apertures? I like the 80/1.9 on medium format but that's because it's fast and cheap. It's not particularly fast or cheap for a 135 lens.
- Pretty soft WO, gets very sharp in center starting at about 2.8, edges stay weak unless stopped way down. Like the 90/2 non-AA was designed as a portrait lens primarily where edges were not of that high a concern.
- Nice Mandler 'glow', like the 90/2, 35/2, 50/2 IIRC and a couple of others he designed
- Very good CA control - best I've seen in such a fast non-APO lens of roughly that FL
-Heavy
-Is well known for having modestly stiffer focus (like the older 90/2 non-APOs). Not crippling, but not as fast and smooth as more modern designs. Makes placement of focus point easy (vs say 35-70/4 which I also owned briefly which has a VERY fast focus - too fast, harder to nail focus point).
- Spendy
In comparison to the 80/1.9, I'd put the M645 at about 90% of the capabilities of the Lux - at about 1/6th the cost. Lacks that Mandler effect, but very good CA control, very sharp once you're down a stop or so, great bokeh, focuses smoother (a nice copy) and lighter.
I loved my Lux and preferred it over the 90/2 non-AA as the Lux gets as sharp at 2.8 in center as 90/2 does at 5.6, but after using the 80/1.9 I just couldn't justify a $1300 lens that had a $250 lens nipping so closely at it's heels and with both being manual stop-down, there wasn't enough of an advantage for me to the Lux to justify it.
Could you notice differences at 100%? Probably. In print, no - other than that 'glow' which I find quite nice. I have a print in my office from a 35/2 on Velvet Fine Art that actually has that glow effect and it's gorgeous, but the 35/2 costs a 1/3rd that of the Lux.
I've also heard some more objective Leica nuts (they do exist, though rare) that the Lux is not a whole lot sharper than say the Nikon 80/1.4. I'd owned the Nikon in a prior life and I'd agree - except for CA control. The Lux runs circles around the Nikon in that regard.
It was much like my 90/2 AA vs the CV 90 APO. Tested them on same scene at same apertures, looked at images at 100% and resolution was identical with the CV having less CA/fringing off a chrome item in the scene and the CV's bokeh was cleaner.
The 90/2AA (theory is due to the Asph design) is not as clean CA and bokeh wise as say the 100 APO. Looked at both lenses - one was $350, the other $1800 (and would need to go to Solms for months at a time for ANY CLA/repair work) and realized I could buy another nice fast lens to go along with the 90 CV to get the < 3.5 speed, keep the 90CV and have a large chunk of change left in my jeans vs keeping the 90AA. Away went the AA.
In short - yes they are very comparable. Identical, no. But close enough you'd need to do the cost/benefit in your head to justify the large $$ difference.
Unfortunately the Leitax mod option for Nikon and an increase in folks looking at Leica as they get fed up with (especially) Canon or Nikon options on high-res sensors (and a general increased interest in Alt glass) have pushed Leica prices to silly levels. A more viable option to the Lux if you prefer Leica color, etc would be the 90/2 non-AA. My pref would be for the more modern version (rarer) that looks identical to the 90/2AA - much smaller and smoother focusing.
The last design of the 90/2.8 is also a killer optic - almost a smaller, shorter non-APO 100 macro for 1/3rd the cost - but at a cost of 2 stops vs the Lux of course.
People also have to bear in mind that the cost advantage of the M645 glass is solely because the line has been dead for some years and until now, alt users have ignore them under the myth that MF glass sucks on 135. Everyone has been fixated on CY, Z_ and Leica. When new, a lot of the M645 lenses were VERY spendy. I do suspect prices will start increasing going fwd. Hell, I never thought I'd see a Mamiya MF thread on any board - let alone one that is so current every day -- and the more people mention a lens .....;>
Conner999 wrote:
People also have to bear in mind that the cost advantage of the M645 glass is solely because the line has been dead for some years and until now, alt users have ignore them under the myth that MF glass sucks on 135. Everyone has been fixated on CY, Z_ and Leica. When new, a lot of the M645 lenses were VERY spendy. I do suspect prices will start increasing going fwd. Hell, I never thought I'd see a Mamiya MF thread on any board - let alone one that is so current every day -- and the more people mention a lens .....;> ...Show more →
The M645 line hasn't been dead very long, the 645 ProTL was only discontinued a couple years ago and parts of the lens line are still in demand with 645AF shooters because many of the more interesting lenses don't exist in the AF line, including the 80/1.9 and the A-series tele's other than the 120/4. In fact it's pretty much the only one of the classic film 645 systems that's still got a reasonable amount of active use (Note I run the Mamiya 645 group on flickr, it's quite steadily growing and one of the more active gear groups I've seen that isn't digital-oriented. Despite being 645 and 645AF-inclusive, film and digital, just about all the activity is M645-oriented).
The reason they're so common and cheap is the wholesale move of higher-end wedding shooters to 35mm-format DSLR's from MF SLR's during the last 5-6 years. The Mamiya 645 line was pretty much the standard wedding camera in the 80's and 90's and Mamiya sold a ton of them. The entire MF market is a fraction of the size it was 10 years ago and that leaves a lot of gear available on the market.
I do agree that prices have bottomed and will begin to rise, especially with the rarer lenses.
Now if you want to see what a dead MF SLR system looks like, go look at the Bronica ETR line. Damn they're getting cheap (and they're a lot less common than M645).
Interesting Conner, thanks for the reply. I have no interest in said "glow" (it's one of my least favorite "features") but always am always interested in lenses I don't know much about. I was never planning to use my Mamiya glass on 135, but if a Zork adapter pops up I certainly won't turn it down.
cgiff wrote:
Interesting Conner, thanks for the reply. I have no interest in said "glow" (it's one of my least favorite "features") but always am always interested in lenses I don't know much about. I was never planning to use my Mamiya glass on 135, but if a Zork adapter pops up I certainly won't turn it down.
Jim Schemel wrote:
I have one and it is an outstanding performer! Very sharp with great color.Also it is one of the smaller Mamiya lenses.Here are a few shots that i have taken with mine.
-Jim
Thanks for your valuable opinion and great shots. It convinced me to buy this lens. Hopefully I will soon be able to contribute to this thread with some pics taken with mamiya 110/2.8
Well, finally got around to finishing the adapter conversion. The 150A performs about as I would expect it to from using it on the 12MP Nikon, just brilliantly. One thing that CAN get in the way in some shots is the tendency to leave a small, thin brightline in the OOF circles in the background... Otherwise it's more APO than many "APO"-branded lenses. And even on the pro-body cameras, it's quite big for a 150mm lens... http://pici.se/pictures/lqRjfigMI.jpg
I'm not as good a photographer as many around here, but I feel that I should at least show some testshots... All WO. First, a shot to show the sometimes nervous bg bokeh - not too bad, but needs to be considered in some situations. This tendency goes away completely at F/4 - but I sometimes wish for an intermediate clickstop at F/3.5, just closing the aperture down a mm or two looses almost no light, but increases contrast and removes the bright-rings... http://pici.se/pictures/CPThPoMNk.jpg
Nice works - and shots. Great detail and nice color and tonality. Agree on the bokeh WO in some case is, but as you say it, can worked around.
Also - congrats on the 120. 100 Euros for a mint copy is stellar. If you like the 150, you'll really like the 120/4. The scary thing is that the new re-formulated (electronic aperture only) 150/2.8A D is apparently nothing short of awe-inspiring vs the older M645 unit.
