How Bad Are Mamiya Press Lenses?

Carter john said:

Mamiya Super 23 by John Carter, on Flickr

Mamiya Super 23 by John Carter, on Flickr

Mamiya Super 23 by John Carter, on Flickr

Here is your answer, can you live with this? Mamiya Sekor 100mm at f 3.5, scanned V500, I think Arista EDU ultra 400.

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...superb owl, let's have a party!

Lenses have always been a point of divergence in photographers... i have some cameras and lenses in several formats, from half frame to 8x10... i find most of my lenses to be adequate for their purposes.
Hasselblad, rollei and mamiya 7 are somewhat benchmarks, but i find some other lenses very interesting... i really do not want all lenses to be equal... i find mamiya press 100mm 2.8 to be one of the most pleasing lenses i own, i also like the 100mm planar and the 38mm biogon for hasselblad, they are very nice... also the bronica gs 80mm and 110mm very good, the 75mm planar from my rollei 3,5f a very very good lens. Mamiya 7 lenses are very good also... the 43 and the 80mm are amazingly sharp, but then... i find them a bit clinical, maybe... it´s me...

in LF i really like most lenses i have.... although i tend to prefer rodenstock...


i also really enjoy my olympus pen ft and its tiny lenses

my stereo sputnik has a nice rendition...

the 180 sonnar for pentacon is also very nice

my 105 1.8 nikkor is also very nice...

but.. i detest some nikkor zooms... image seems always strange to me, although sharp...

the real test is to buy and use... you will never lose a lot of money in this analog gear...


cheers!

Couple thoughts on Mamiya MF lenses:

LF lenses that can throw an image circle out to cover an 8 x 10" or 4 x 5" sheet of film and provide enough extra margin to allow for shifts, swings, and tilts, are necessarily going to have inherently larger circles of confusion than smaller formats, even with reduced maximum apertures. This is simply a matter of optical physics, material development, and manufacturing processes. I came to see this, studying images created with the vaunted Schneider APO Symmar 150mm ƒ5.6, that has a noticeably larger circle of confusion compared to Mamiya MF glass of equal focal length.

I had decided for my own work, to standardize on the 6 x 9/120 format, so was considering a technical camera, fitted with a 120 film back and a 150mm lens as the primary (just personal preference) optic. Closely examining some prints and negatives made using the APO Symmar left the impression one could make technically improved images by using a 6 x 9 system with optics specifically designed for the format. LF images inherently appear superior as a function of negative size, rather than lens quality itself. If you examine 35mm vs 8 x 10" pinhole camera this becomes apparent, though a worker may choose to apply the difference for aesthetic effect.

As observed before on this thread and others, Mamiya has made some of the finest MF glass anyone could ask for; even the uncoated optics of the first-generation RB67 lenses were great to start with, ultimately becoming phenomenal (I’d happily compare their quality & performance to any German glass) and I came to find the Mamiya Press lenses, specifically designed for the 69 format and platform are noticeably superior in their technical image rendering than any general purpose LF lens. I say this with a nod to the superb Tessar designs of the older folding cameras, who captured light in a far different manner, resulting in exquisite images all their own.

Who cares? Probably the medium format aficion who can’t afford a Rollei or Hasselblad system, or wants to move on from 6 x 6—never a favorite for my own work—seeking a higher level of technical excellence in their output without having to sell body parts to acquire the necessary means. Ever price a good MF digital back?

One might ask why not a specimen of the Fuji G690 (AKA Texas Leica) family? I considered that system as well but found the Fuji glass was designed with image sharpness/minimal circle of confusion as its primary goal, with color rendering a second item in the process. One the one hand, these lenses render image details blisteringly sharp, and as documentary cameras, they are second to none. From a subjective standpoint, to my eye, the images these series of cameras produce fall short aesthetically in that, they have little apparent depth. The images print quite flat: photographs made with Fuji G90 rangefinders appear to have been taken of another photograph or some two-dimensional source, ultimately resembling photographs printed in a periodical.

The Mamiya Press and especially RB67 lenses, render wonderfully “rounded” images with great depth—regardless of the aperture chosen by the photographer or focal length. Mamiya’s lens designs, IMHO, represented the pinnacle of accomplishment for task-specific MF camera systems, as the dominance of analog photography began its decline.

Pentax’s 6 x 7 system glass is a close second in my darkroom printing experience and I retain great fondness for the camera system.

Frankly, the Zeiss lenses on Hasselblad, et. al. prioritized a high modulus of transfer function to the extent that, while superb of course, fall a tad short of the Mamiya designs. Personally, I can’t justify the enormous expense for the systems seen on eBay and other used equipment outlets.

But then, I don’t care for 6 x 6, so there.

Hope these thoughts such as they are, prove useful at a minimum to assist a reader seeking to avoid the onset of ennui during an extended bathroom break… Happy trails!

Hmm. I am in the smallest room in my house. Your screed is in front of me. Before I leave the room it will be behind me.

Being an optimist, I’ll take that as a compliment…

Monday317 said:

Being an optimist, I’ll take that as a compliment…

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Not at all. Your apparently informative post is filled with misinformation.

Look up the definition of "circle of confusion." You got it completely wrong.

All lenses for the RB system are coated. What do you think "coated" means?

Lenses are made to prescriptions. A prescription is easily scaled to make lenses of different focal lengths. Aberrations scale with focal length. This is why a long focus Tessar, for example, can't be as sharp as a short focus Tessar made to the same prescription. Thing is, not all lenses with the same trade name, Tessar, for example, are made to the same prescription.

If I understand the situation correctly -- I could be mistaken -- Zeiss lenses for 6x6 SLRs are optimized for performance at large apertures.

I'm not a moderator and can't speak for any of this forum's moderators. If I were a moderator I'd delete post #53 above and replies to it.

Trying ... so hard ... to restrain myself.

Anyway, I have a 100mm lens on my Mamiya Press - the lens is quite good, when I can manage to hold the camera still enough. I should always have a tripod with that lens....

The Mamiya Press was designed to be used hand held, I hand hold my Universal as long as I can keep the shutter speed up to over 1/125th, at lower speeds I use a mono or tripod. I generally shoot a high speed film, Tmax 400, Foma 400 at 320, but if I shoot Tmax 100 or such and and to keep the aperture around F 16 or so I will use a tripod.

Dan Fromm said:

Not at all. Your apparently informative post is filled with misinformation.

Look up the definition of "circle of confusion." You got it completely wrong.

All lenses for the RB system are coated. What do you think "coated" means?

Lenses are made to prescriptions. A prescription is easily scaled to make lenses of different focal lengths. Aberrations scale with focal length. This is why a long focus Tessar, for example, can't be as sharp as a short focus Tessar made to the same prescription. Thing is, not all lenses with the same trade name, Tessar, for example, are made to the same prescription.

If I understand the situation correctly -- I could be mistaken -- Zeiss lenses for 6x6 SLRs are optimized for performance at large apertures.

I'm not a moderator and can't speak for any of this forum's moderators. If I were a moderator I'd delete post #53 above and replies to it.

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OK, Circle of Least Confusion if you prefer. Semantics aside, the concept remains the same.

Yes, all the Mamiya Sekor optics were coated but the original line before the NB (New Barrel, which morphed into the C lenses at one point) only had a single exterior anti-reflective coating on the front element. As the production of NB and C lenses developed, the coatings got much better.

I don’t understand the need for the prescription lecture; it’s kind of a given how lenses are designed. Nor is it necessary to gas on about individual lens designs either, regarding specific optimization criteria. No argument on things like Zeiss 6 x 6 performance criteria in relation to focal length and aperture; I’ll take you at your word given I’m not a trained optical design engineer. My background is in medical physics.

I apologize if I failed to be clear that my observations were only personal, not to be taken as authoritative, which you seem to have done.

That said, your desire to censor and remove content with which you disagree or simply dislike is troubling. There’s no reason for it, and you are free to make negative comments if you like, then go on with your life.
{Moderator deletion of content straying into the political}

Dan Fromm said:

I'm not a moderator and can't speak for any of this forum's moderators. If I were a moderator I'd delete post #53 above and replies to it.

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And you are not, and we won't.
Critically constructive responses to that which you disagree with are appropriate.

Thank you.

I suspect complaints about Mamiya Press lenses being less than good are because the lenses are out of focus on the camera, not synced to the the distance numbers on the focus ring, the rangefinder patch, or a ground glass. Checking with a ground glass will tell the story of the other two. I had the problem, but rather than fiddle with the rangefinder, I thought I'd rummaged through my collection of lenses first, and I found three that coincided with focus accuracy on the ground glass. The lenses happened to be 65mm, 100mm, 150mm. This was a big relief, but more or less a fluke. The rangefinder is not easy to adjust, having three or four small grub screws glued in place and very easy to break if the glue is not softened first. That's one plane, the other plane is adjusted through the hole in the top plate once the plug is removed. Why all the other lenses were out of focus, I'm not sure, but there are two different Standard Press cameras, and then there's the Super 23, and then of course wear and tear shifting the accuracy of all the vital rangefinder parts, also expansion and contraction over the years. In other words, the cameras are getting old and expecting them to retain factory specs is really quite an exercise in fantasy.

+1.
I use my Super 23 with a ground glass viewer more or less as an LF camera for artiste seriuose stuff. The iPhone works fine for snapshots.

Monday317 said:

+1.
I use my Super 23 with a ground glass viewer more or less as an LF camera for artiste seriuose stuff. The iPhone works fine for snapshots.

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It's the only way to go. However, my Standard Press is right to go now as a handheld camera knowing those three lenses I tried are accurately focusing via the rangefinder patch. I love using the camera because it's lighter than my Super 23, which is still perched on the shelf looking at me saying, "When are going to use me?" - Not yet, I'm having too much fun with the Standard. I've taken pics on expired B&W film and I couldn't be happier, beautiful 6x9 shots. The 65mm is the bees knees, and the 100mm is not bad either, but I've only used it for test films so far. One of those shots is a keeper, nice shot of my house, trees, and mountain escarpments behind it.

Monday317 said:

Yes, all the Mamiya Sekor optics were coated but the original line before the NB (New Barrel, which morphed into the C lenses at one point) only had a single exterior anti-reflective coating on the front element. As the production of NB and C lenses developed, the coatings got much better.

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I'm not a fan of thread titles/opening questions like "How bad are X lenses?" or "Is the Y lens really so bad?" I don't think the OP intended to start an argument, but the title reads like a provocation. Major manufacturers, especially in professional medium format gear, didn't set out to make unsharp lenses, and sometimes internet lore is just myth. When users have problems, it often does have something to do with hardware issues like focus problems in 50-60 year old gear, not the lens.

That said, it doesn't help to propagate more myths. Older Mamiya Press lenses, at least the ones I've seen (many) are single-coated on all the external surfaces, not just the front surface. Single coating of that era usually shows a purple or orange reflection of a light source, while uncoated glass will show a brighter white reflection. If you put a single coated lens and an uncoated lens or ordinary glass next to each other, the difference is usually apparent.

Lens designers don't use the terms "circle of least confusion" or "modulus of transfer function" (you mean "modulation transfer function"). If one wants to talk about the pictorial imaging characteristics of different brands/lines of lenses, a subject that has its own accretion of lore, it is better to talk about it in pictorial terms than to dress it up with technical terms that may not apply.

An ignominious title like that keeps the prices of the lenses down to well within our distressed budgets.

film4Me said:

It's the only way to go. However, my Standard Press is right to go now as a handheld camera knowing those three lenses I tried are accurately focusing via the rangefinder patch. I love using the camera because it's lighter than my Super 23, which is still perched on the shelf looking at me saying, "When are going to use me?" - Not yet, I'm having too much fun with the Standard. I've taken pics on expired B&W film and I couldn't be happier, beautiful 6x9 shots. The 65mm is the bees knees, and the 100mm is not bad either, but I've only used it for test films so far. One of those shots is a keeper, nice shot of my house, trees, and mountain escarpments behind it.

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I stripped the top off a junker original press body and used it this summer as a fun zone focus camera with 50mm.

Pretty fun if you like the press lenses and backs but were looking for something a bit more portable. Swapping the 50 for the 90 and the accessory viewfinder for the sports finder drops the weight a substantial amount more.

film4Me said:

It's the only way to go. However, my Standard Press is right to go now as a handheld camera knowing those three lenses I tried are accurately focusing via the rangefinder patch. I love using the camera because it's lighter than my Super 23, which is still perched on the shelf looking at me saying, "When are going to use me?" - Not yet, I'm having too much fun with the Standard. I've taken pics on expired B&W film and I couldn't be happier, beautiful 6x9 shots. The 65mm is the bees knees, and the 100mm is not bad either, but I've only used it for test films so far. One of those shots is a keeper, nice shot of my house, trees, and mountain escarpments behind it.

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Mine came with the ƒ3.5 100mm of course, and I got minty 75 & 150s to go with it. Still experimenting, I hear great things about the 65.

aconbere said:

I stripped the top off a junker original press body and used it this summer as a fun zone focus camera with 50mm.

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Very cool pink Standard you've got there. How are your wrists?, those 50mm lenses weigh a ton.

Monday317 said:

Mine came with the ƒ3.5 100mm of course, and I got minty 75 & 150s to go with it. Still experimenting, I hear great things about the 65.

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What I like about the 65 is it is wide angle without being too wide. It gives that little bit extra coverage in your photos without much pictorial distortion, if any. Actually, it's more than a little bit extra coverage, but what you do get makes me at least, use the 65 often, out doors, more so than the 90 or the 100. I would understand perfectly if someone had a 65 permanently attached their Standard or Super 23. The quality of the optics I haven't studied yet, I've been just looking at the pics I've taken and deciding which ones to save and print. But I will study some scans for edge softness and distortion when I put some more film through the Standard, for that purpose.

film4Me said:

Very cool pink Standard you've got there. How are your wrists?, those 50mm lenses weigh a ton.

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Only 100g more than the 75

I have the 50 and 65, generally use the 65 more often than the 50, which I find a bit too wide for most landscapes. The 65 is very sharp at F11.