Hi All,
I thought I'd share a surprising result I obtained recently. As you know, the Mamiya RB/RZ cameras use bellows focusing, so the shorter the focal length, the higher the magnification one can achieve.
Some months back, I was walking on the beach, with just my RB67 and 50mm C lens. An opportunity presented itself in the form of a small beetle sitting on a twig, trying to dry itself. Now, any of you who have done 1:1 macro with the RB67 and the 140mm Macro lens know how cumbersome and massive the setup is, basically requiring a tripod, focusing rail and double cable release, together with both extension tubes (of course, quality is *seriously* good).
So I though, why not give it a try anyway: I just focused to closest focusing distance, set the floating element to minimum distance (to correct as much as one can, although this of course goes way beyong what the lens was designed to do), put the camera down on the sand (love waist-level viewfinders...) and took the shoot (f/22 for [some] depth of field, 1s exposure, FP4+ film).
The resolution and clarity on the subject is wonderful on a print, only the corners suffering from some serious field curvature.
What a versatile camera system...
I thought I'd share a surprising result I obtained recently. As you know, the Mamiya RB/RZ cameras use bellows focusing, so the shorter the focal length, the higher the magnification one can achieve.
Some months back, I was walking on the beach, with just my RB67 and 50mm C lens. An opportunity presented itself in the form of a small beetle sitting on a twig, trying to dry itself. Now, any of you who have done 1:1 macro with the RB67 and the 140mm Macro lens know how cumbersome and massive the setup is, basically requiring a tripod, focusing rail and double cable release, together with both extension tubes (of course, quality is *seriously* good).
So I though, why not give it a try anyway: I just focused to closest focusing distance, set the floating element to minimum distance (to correct as much as one can, although this of course goes way beyong what the lens was designed to do), put the camera down on the sand (love waist-level viewfinders...) and took the shoot (f/22 for [some] depth of field, 1s exposure, FP4+ film).
The resolution and clarity on the subject is wonderful on a print, only the corners suffering from some serious field curvature.
What a versatile camera system...
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