There's a very nice 150/2.8 on ebay now with a start bid of $150 (ending in 4 days). Sometimes these Mamiyas get very few bids, so this could be a great bargain.
Item no. 220700288710.
This might be a stupid or painfully obvious question, but is there a way to adapt Mamiya 7II glass for, say, micro-4/3 use ? I took a look around the usual places for an adapter and could find mention of one.
tmark, sadly the excellent Mamiya 7II rangefinder lenses are not adaptable to dSLR on the account of the rear lens elements protruding too much on those wide angle lenses. The 150mm lens is probably adaptable if one would really want to, maybe the 80mm too but there is a plethora of excellent lenses to choose from in and around those focal lengths, from Mamiya and others.
@tmark: I think in theory it should be possible, but I believe those lenses aren't exactly cheap. The excellent 43mm also has a large rear protrusion which may make adapting it difficult. The registry distance is approx. 60mm. according to wikipedia.
Kosmos and Aham -
Thanks for the very fast replies! It happens that i have a few of the 7ii lenses including the 43, 65 and 80, and thought it might be fun to try them on digital. After investing in Mf i found I don't have as much time for film as I had planned :-{
I did understand that these lenses were excellent.
tmark wrote:
I did understand that these lenses were excellent.
That's what I have gathered too.
Maybe Henrik didn't pick up on the fact that you asked about adapting the lenses to m4/3's (or Sony NEX would even be better). Perhaps even the 43mm can be adapted to the m4/3's or NEX if the protrusion isn't longer than 60 - 20 or 60-18mm = 40 or 42mm. But you'll have to fashion something of your own as no adapters are available on the market.
I have no idea how these lenses will perform on such a camera though. For sure it will not give the same kind of images as on 6x7 film.
Benjamin: I did get that it was for M4/3. In my opinion, narrowminded as it might be, I don't think it is cost effective or worth the hassle for the crop factor, cludgy adapter and costly conversion. I think the magic of that 43mm will be lost on fourthirds.
The Mamiya M7/150mm lens is a fine landscape lens but has lousy bokeh for closer range and it is on the slow side, aperture wise.
kosmoskatten wrote:
In my opinion, narrowminded as it might be, I don't think it is cost effective or worth the hassle for the crop factor, cludgy adapter and costly conversion. I think the magic of that 43mm will be lost on fourthirds.
I agree, but tmark already has the lenses, so cost-effectivity doesn't come into play.
Kosmos,
again appreciate your use of Kludgey to the discussion.It is the perfect word for what you are trying to say.When you start making your own adapters or have to use more than one adapter to make a lens work it can be hard to work with and creates a lot of slop in the fit and finish.Thanks for adding this word to my vocabulary.Always trying to improve in this area.
-Jim
AhamB, yup, he has the lenses. But, finding an adapter ready to purchase would probably come at an off-putting price. Hence, it is not cost effective. Most importantly the lenses he has do not translate well into fourthirds. I have had the M7 with 43/50/80 and 150mm lenses, my friend had the 65mm lens and much as I can attest to their superiority in that format I would not convert a single one of them to a smaller format. But, it's just me.
It is the same as for me with the Mamiya 120/4 lens; since the only simple one-piece adapter from Mamiya 645 to Sony Alpha I have come across costs much more than what I paid for the lens (!) I have decided to wait. One price quote I got was £335 / $530 for the straight adapter!!!
Apparently Fotodiox will release Mamiya 645 adapters for Sony Alpha mount next year so I am glad I waited.
@Henrik: I also wouldn't put serious money in adapting these lenses (definitely not converting). It would still be interesting to see how they'd do on a Sony NEX (a bit less crop than MFT), just with some cheap provisional adapter solution. Definitely it would be kludgey attached to such a small camera though.
Everyone,
thanks again for your replies. I certainly wouldn't have invested the kind of money Kosmos was citing to use my 7ii lenses on u4/3. I was hoping that any commercially available adapter would be in the range of the adapters I was familiar with - say, less than $200. At that price I'd be happy to just play with the lenses and wouldn't be expecting too much. Any more than that would get me out of my "play" budget.
Not knowing much about the design of lenses,however I had no idea whether his was even doable or not. Maybe someday someone will invent a sensor that is a drop-in replacement for a roll of film and i can use my 7ii lenses the way they were intended...
It boils down to a number of things: those precious M7wide angle lenses are "true" rangefinder wide angles which often don't work that well with being adapted to digital. Not only because the rear lens elements stick out but also because the wide angle light fall off / perimeter light from those film based lenses can cause all sorts of trouble with digital sensors when hitting the sensor at an angle that the sensors can't really cope with - unless the pixels are offset, which they are only on very few cameras. (I don't even know of another one except the Leica M9 - a rangefinder digital.) Film was much more forgiving that way.
I still miss those M7 wides, they were among the best lenses I have used but with the crop factor I would not convert them even if I could have, or if I still had them. The portion of the glass you effectively use is tiny when you compare the micro four thirds / four thirds to the 6x7 format they were designed to cover. This also means that the 43mm goes from a superb wide angle lens to a slightly boring and bulky cropped - and slow - normal lens/short tele with
very little of that magic left.
That drop in replacement for 6x7 roll film is a nice pipe dream that you share with many of us.
Benjamin:
I would love to see shots taken with Mamiya 7 lenses in other formats, for sure. I just would not recommend or want to do the painstaking conversion myself.
Henrik
