I am torn between the Mamiya (any of the various versions) and the Pentax 645n. What are the thoughts and observations from folks who have used them? I am also curious about lens availability, quality and prices.
Hi Tim,
No experience with Mamiya 645.
I have been shooting with my Pentax 645N for a little over 12 years now. I bought mine as a salvage - it had been dropped along with the lens - and sent it off to Pentax USA in Colorado (when they still repaired cameras in house). Anyhow, they replaced some items and brought it back up to spec and it just keeps working. I have used it in the Ecuadorean Amazon and up in the Andes at 12,000 feet, and in the bitter cold up in the Catkills and Ontario -- and it just works. I have purchased spare bodies in the past thinking that my original body will just stop one day, but after a year or two, I sell these off until I start to get nervous again and buy another back up or two. A wonderful development here in the USA is that there is a fellow that has started to repair these bodies and even 3D print some parts, so service is not a problem. I have had two 645N bodies in to him (my back ups that I never end up needing) for service and am very happy with the work.
645 Lenses - I have the FA 75mm f/2.8 which is the kit lens and it is small, light and sharp enough. I have also used the FA 45-85mm f/4.5 which is a sleeper lens in this line up and some say sharper than the prime 45mm. The FA 80-160mm f/4.5 is also very nice although I don't own that one anymore. The FA 200mm f/4 is also another sleeper lens which can be found for under $200 in clean condition - sharp and very light. The FA 150mm f/2.8 is a wonderful portrait lens and I can't seem to decide between it and the FA 200mm f/4. The A 120mm f/4 macro is great and really inexpensive lately (under $200). For longer glass the A* 300mm f/4 ED is a very solid starting point, sharp and inexpensive (although as the A designates, manual focus only). For wider than the 45mm there is the A 35mm f/3.5 is small and very nice to use - I used to also own the FA 35mm f/3.5 and could not justify the additional cost despite it likely being a bit sharper (it was a beautiful lens, but I just did not shoot much at this foal length, so the A version stayed). There is also a unique (for medium format film series) wide angle zoom, the FA 33-55mm f/4.5 AL that I have owned a few times already. A very nice range, but a range I don't find myself using with the 645N. I have also owned the FA 400mm f/5.6 which was nice, but did not see much use by me (see Pentax-M* 67 400mm below). There are also two leaf shutter lenses that are worth looking into if you do any flash work. They are the A 75mm f/2.8 LS and the A 135mm f/4 LS - both very useful focal length on their own with the added benefit of flash sync speeds of up to 1/500th of a second due to the built in leaf shutter. Many other Pentax 645 mount lenses available and many of the A series (manual focus only) are rather inexpensive and easy to find.
67 Lenses - for portraits the 67 105mm f/2.4 is fantastic (there are three versions, the earlier have thorium and that may add a yellow/amber tinge to the glass if not treated with UV light - easily reversible). You can use the Pentax 67 (6x7) lenses on 645 bodies via a few different choices of adapters, one of them being the Pentax brand. There are a few other straight adapters from places like K&F etc. One adapter that you might want to look into if you need shift ability is the Zoerk Pro Shift (
http://www.zoerk.com/pages/p_pshift.htm). Another, albeit expensive and heavy option, is the stunning mouthfull - SMC Pentax-M* 67 400mm F4 ED [IF] - large and heavy, but oh so sharp and gorgeous bokeh if you need fast and long.
other lenses - you can adapt some Hasselblad lenses although I've never tried. There is an interesting lens if you like Petzval-type effect that a fellow in Olympia WA has made in a Pentacon Six mount (easily adapted to Pentax 645 cameras)
http://ivanichek.com/Medium format Petzvar Petzval lens.htm. I've used mine sparingly and that is just due to not having enough time. Other Pentacon Six mount lenses are easy to find and easy to adapt to a Pentax 645 series camera. The Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 in Pentacon Six mount is somewhat big, but a nice addition to your line up if you do a lot of portrait work. My copy of this lens has a 1/4"-20 thread on the rotating tripod mount.
Pentax 645N design - the viewfinder is bright and beautiful. There are some focusing screen options available notably the AB-82 which is a split image type that is very useful for me when manually focusing lenses. The AB-82 is kind of hard to find and I've managed to squirrel a couple away for myself, so they are out there, but infrequently offered and becoming more scarce as wedding photographers return to film and discover the Pentax 645N world. The dials are a nice feature that is familiar to me. It is louder than my Nikon SLRs/DSLRs and Minolta SLRs, but nowhere near as loud as my Fuji GX680 or even the Pentax 67. There is the option to imprint data onto the non-image portion of negatives/slides to help figure out what settings and lens you used for that particular shot. The dual, six segment matrix meter works very well for me with C-41 films except for sunny days with lots of snow, but that is easy to fix with the exposure compensation dial. With manual focusing, there is a handy focus confirmation feature on the 645N which can be a simple green hexagon lighting up in the viewfinder or you can also add an audible option (soft beep) when something is in focus. While the autofocus is not up to the same speed and tracking ability of modern DSLRs, it is very usable for my needs - portraits, casual imaging of friends, landscapes and when I owned the FA 400mm f/5.6 for wildlife (larger birds and mammals where the autofocus was helpful and effective).
I'm a big fan of the Pentax 645N and it would be the last camera that I would sell (apart from a sentimental Minolta SRT-102).
Yuri
