What Medium Format Cameras Are Members Here Using?

[ChrisGalway]

Keen on hearing how you get along with it, I love the GW690 for street photography and the GSW690 for landscapes, but the slighly more cropped in look of the 670 might work well for street also. Something like a 50 rather than a 40, and two extra frames obviously.

I also would be interested to hear how campy51 gets on with the GW670 III, a nice format. Yes, the GW690 is a great camera for street photography, but the shutter release linkage mechanism makes a very loud noise, anyone within 10 metres hears it!

 

[grant.goodes]

In terms of the lens, the Nikkor Plaubel is a stop faster, but the Mamiya 80mm is significantly higher resolution.
The Nikkor is a great lens that works very well for portraits and atmospheric shots, and as long as you do moderate enlargements it performs very well.
But for really big prints (like over 1.5meters), the Mamiya will capture noticably more details.

The same can be said for pretty much any other medium format lens though. The Mamiya 7 lenses are the highest resolution of all medium format films I've seen.

Of course the biggest difference is that you can change the lenses on the Mamiya 7. I use the 65mm nearly all the time on mine.

Your comments are very interesting. I've read a few Mamiya vs. Makina reviews, but they generally "focused" on the handling, rather than the quality of the lenses. It would make sense that the relatively old Nikkor 80/2.8 design (from the late 70's) would have been improved upon by Mamiya, and of course a slower f/4 lens could be made with fewer aberrations.

And as I normally prefer the 24mm focal length on 35mm format, a wide-angle option for my Plaubel would have been great. There is the W67 with a 55/.4.5, but at the time I was looking for a Plaubel, the W67 was very hard to find, and I was put off by the relatively slow-speed lens: I guess I just didn't understand how a MF Rangefinder would behave in reality, and how the 80/2.8 wide-open would be VERY little DOF. The Mamiya's 50/4.5 (equivalent to 24mm) would have been perfect for me, but I'm not going to invest in another system at this point.

 

[Valmidira]

Rolleiflex TLRs.

I find medium format as little bit "strange". For any "fast action" 35mm is probably better and for anything "slower" large format is also better with all the movements etc. TLRs are the only exception that makes sense for me.