Mamiya 7ii vs Pentax 67ii (just the lenses)

hsteeves said:

I can use and see the effects of filters with a Pentax, can't with the Mamiya - especially a polarizer.

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Do the old TLR trick. Screw a polarizer onto your lens and then mark it top dead center on the ring next to the camera. When viewing your subject hold the Polarizer off camera with your mark at the top. Turn the outside polarizer ring until you get the desired effect and then put it on the lens being careful not to change the setting.

If you are clumsy like most of us you can put different color tick marks or numbers around the outside ring of the polarizer so you will know exactly where you had it set in case you move it while screwing it on your lens.

It's not as easy as an SLR but it works.

The Mamiya 7 really is the high water mark for medium format lenses. In their focal length, they basically have no peer.

That said it really excels at the wide-to-normal end of things. (thought the 150 and 210 are great lenses as well).

For a system camera with longer lenses, the RZ67 is the one to beat. I think it trumps both the RB and the P67II. There's maybe one lens in the P67 system (the 600 I think? or maybe the 400) that I would lust after even a little bit. Everything else, the RZ67 can either match or beat the P67 system, lens-wise. Throw in interchangable backs, prisms/viewers, leaf shutters in all lenses, bellows focus (all lenses are close-up capable), availability and price and it's a no-brainer, RZ67 FTW. ;-)

But like Alan mentions 4x5 is often cheaper than a full blown MF system and almost as portable. Materials costs are a fair bit higher though (just per-shot film cost of a factor of about 8-10x for example).

-Ed

I'm obviously a bit skeptical how much you've actually used later P67 lenses, Ed, if any of em. Widefield strophotographers would laugh their head off at your comment; the only conventional camera brand lens they ever seem to talk about is Pentax, namely the 300EDIF and 400EDIF. Yet everything is relative. Any halfway competent large format shot will instantly bypass all the nitpicky debates about medium format lenses; and frankly, merely moving up to 6x9 can leave 6x7 in the dust, all other things being equal. But we have other reasons for choosing medium format, not just the amount
of detail that can be packed onto a particular area of film. I'm perfectly content hiking around with an 8x10 camera, but just can't picture myself
lugging a around a tank of an RZ67 for the sake of 120 film.

First of all, the old 105/2.4 P67 lens I own is ridiculously sharp. The complaints that come up about these things have a different source, I suspect.
For one thing, people confuse it with depth of field problems. They either stop the lens down to the point of conspicuous diffraction or erroneously
think wide-angle lenses are inherently sharper. No way around that dilemma except to use a view camera with plane of focus tilts, or something
comparable. Second, they don't adequately appreciate the real weakness in the P67 system, which is the mirror slap at slower speeds, which is what
the mirror-lockup is for, which obviously mandates tripod usage. Third, people run around with these silly tripods that look like a three-legged selfie
stick with a wobbly ballhead that would make even an aphid seasick like a drunken sailor. The problem only gets worse with long heavy telephotos,
where a serious tripod just comes with the territory. But still, with the right lens choice, this is a handholdable system, once popular with aerial photographers, fashion photographers, and once even available with an underwater housing. The 75/2.8 would be an excellent choice for handheld work, though I personally prefer the 75/4.5 on tripod. But from an engineering standpoint, of course a better wide-angle lens can hypothetically be made, because you don't have that mirror distance in-between to contend with. Yet if I compare prints from my humble affordable P67 75/4.5 to my
friend's taken with Zeiss 66 lenses that cost ten times as much (and we both use 105 Apo Rodagon N's to print em), it would be damn near impossible
to tell them apart from a sharpness basis, and I think I prefer the subtle bokeh quality of the Pentax better. This is more of a fun argument overall.
Most pro MF systems were very well designed to begin with. Just depends on you priorities focal-length wise, weight and budget issues, etc.

I just did some street shooting not long ago with the ancient 6x7 MLU and took the 90 f2.8 and 75 f4.5 lens. I had no trouble hand holding with either lens. With the 45 or 55mm lens it's even easier. I was using Tri-X at ASA 250 which doesn't require a slow speed necessary for the MLU or tripod. The only time I've used a tripod with that camera is with studio portraits and weddings.

My best 6x7 shot ever, subject-wise, was handheld with a 55 lens and color film around 1/60th. But it certainly wasn't my sharpest shot! So I don't
like printing it bigger than 11x14. A general rule of thumb is to use the mirror lock for anything slower than 1/125th. But this obviously also depends
on the focal length of lens and how steady you can hold it, as well as the ASA of your given film. I shoot a lot of ACROS, or sometimes Pan F, using contrast filters, so a tripod is mandatory. Tomorrow I might lug around the 300EDIF, which means a REAL tripod, my bigger Ries maple version.

During the 1982 World's Fair I did a fair amount of night photography which required the heavy Manfrotto tripod. I new exposure would be in the 1/2-4 second range and had to guess a lot and do a little bracketing. Ektachrome 50 Tungsten film did really well.

WorldsFair0003 by David Fincher, on Flickr

WorldsFair0004 by David Fincher, on Flickr

Those shots look great, ColColt! I won't mention what I was doing in 1982

http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/MF_testing.html has some good comparative testing of various MF lenses.

Drew I would put the RZ67 APO lenses up against the P67 teles any time. ;-) You are right about the p67 mirror slap, it's like a grenade going off when that fires.

ColColt, thanks for the beautiful pix! It was good they allowed you to use a tripod.
In exhibitions etc it has become common that picture taking is allowed, though strictly no mono- or tripod or similar. With this, I was repeatedly at a complete loss with the Fuji 680, while a Plaubel still yielded good results (sorry for bringing other strange brands into the discussion - they're gone, fallen prey to robbers). The M7 lenses (which I use now) were called "clinical" further up. May I disagree. I like their rendition etc. better than Fuji's acclaimed glass (~same focal length). The extra stop in the Plaubel (2.8 vs. 4 or 4.5) has a _big_ advantage for selective focus, which may also apply to the Pentax. Stopped down - by 8+ they're getting quite similar.
Colour transmission remains different though. The Nikon lens on the Plaubel is a bit warmer than the other two. How would the Pentax and Mamiyas compare?

To effectively use the enormous resolution of these systems, eg. on a CMS 20 or even TMax 100, the light Plaubel or M7 are as much in need of a sturdy support as is the big SLR - no question, a reasonable tripod+head will be the heaviest item in any setup.

Polarizers on a rangefinder. Those flip-types are insanely expensive and too flimsy. Instead I use 2, both marked with numbers as stated above in an identical manner, and one (the cheapo) with a "touch-mark" at the exact top or bottom of the ring. The good one may stick on the lens, no fiddling. The "cheapo" is hand-hold and one peeps through while investigating the scene - then transfer the setting to the camera polariser. Its actually often faster than with the SLR.

Good light at all times! P.

Color transmission is an interesting point, though I doubt it would make such a great difference. It's nice to know that at least one person appreciates the character of the M7ii lenses. I'd like to believe that there's hope in that regard.

Ed, you're not comparing apples with apples. Of course a lens can be better corrected with a smaller apertures. What if you need something faster?
And in the latter case, you can generally stop it down the something more optimal. But we're splitting hairs here. You are more limited by the size
of the format itself. The relatively small size of 120 film often mandates slower, finer-grained films, at least if the chihuahua want to run with the
big dogs, meaning presentation beside prints generated from large format. But back to the snide tele remark - I can put a Nikon on my P67 300EDIF,
shoot it wide open (which obviously uses only the center of the optic), and it exceeds any dedicated Nikon tele I have used. It's that damn good, and
a lot of people know it by now, some of them with "tripods" in the fifty and sixty thousand dollar range, meaning trailer-mounted astro mounts. But
once you get past 200 with a P67, and into some truly huge long lenses, you have to be conscious of not only mirror slap, but even vibration from the
shutter curtain at lower speeds. The 300 EDIF allow two tripod mounts, one obviously on the camera body, the other on the lens collar. I use both at
the same time, with the lens solidly mounted to a maple block, which in turn it mounted directly atop the platform of various view camera tripods.
I use a Gitzo pan/tilt head and basic carbon or aluminum tripods for up to 165 lenses, but never for something like this. Rock solid. Period. Then I've
done my own battery of test at every speed, every f-stop. I always take web-published lens specs with a grain of salt, including perez. Things ain't
that simple.

OK - slightly different subject. Color transmission per se. So right back to my previous diatribe. The 300EDIF is one of these new cat's meow lenses
highly corrected for color fringing along with very good contrast and saturation at a long focal length. That is specifically one of the reasons visual spectrum astrophotographers love it. But I also own the far cheaper older 300. Why? In my case, the 6x7 system doubles as a convenience snapshooting system. I might be out on the road trying to get to some location where I'll be backpacking with 4x5 gear, and sure as hell don't want to leave anything really expensive behind in the car. The cheaper 300 will give me fine black and white shots with a deep contrast filter attached, truncating some of the color fringing on edges. The 300EDIF will do even better; but it's something I don't let out of my sight. Often it's nice to have a "beater" camera system, competent for the task, but not valuable enough to induce a heart attack if something gets lost.

rwreich said:

Color transmission is an interesting point, though I doubt it would make such a great difference. It's nice to know that at least one person appreciates the character of the M7ii lenses. I'd like to believe that there's hope in that regard.

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I think there is: subtle yellow-browns eg. drying grass, hey, early autum colours in a warm, diffuse evening light - on Astia (long gone, too): that was the domain of the Nikon/Plaubel. The other two didn't bring the same subtle hues across.
But then, differences are are minute and will likely not be of any effect in a negative-positive process, leave alone digital post processing.
And yes, I DO like the charakter of the M7 lenses I have: The contrast (and its gradual fading into off focus areas, in BW too!) is second to none - well, YMMV.

But these are all minute details. And may be not important at all: Some people use plastic cameras once sold for 1$50 - and create impressive pictures.

None of this gear reaches quite the level of color quality I can get with a 6x9 rollfilm back (staying on the MF theme), and using a 300 Nikkor M view
camera lens (staying on the 300 focal length jargon). With only six air/glass interfaces, all multicoated, and having view camera tilts and swings
available, it doesn't get much better, PROVIDED you have enough time to set up that kind of rig. But with each rollfilm back itself weighing just over
a pound, and a set of 3 lenses weighing less than a single P67 or RB lens, this does make a lot sense. As I fade into geezerhood, the notion of owning
something nice and light like an MF rangefinder becomes increasingly appealing; but I'd have to invest in two bodies to conveniently alternate between both color and b&w film, there would be a whole new gear investment. I doubt that the delicate bellows of one of these latest Fuji or Bessa
6x7 rangefinders would survive for long under the conditions I often shoot. The M7 would be a wonderful retirement present, but I'm more likely to
get a damn brass-plated clock!

Poisson Du Jour said:

An incident reading will not be a match for an onboard meter, especially if that meter is one of the matrix/evaluative/3D which accounts for high and low values and measures them, rather than assumes all values of the scene are average (as a straight incident reading does).

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Which 6X7 is the one that has the matrix/3D etc. meter?

Sounds like one of the Pentax Digital MF's, which some people use certain P67 lenses on. But who cares? A nonsense comment otherwise. I spotmeter everything handheld, even though I have a metering prism on one 6x7 body. "Matrix" metering is just another gimmick that takes over decisions you should make yourself. I think of these on-board metering options as potential backup, that's all.

Pedestrian and ordinary are not the adjectives for any of the lenses of the systems talked about... the 105mm 2.4 from pentax it´s not a tele lens, it´s a very good planar, xenotar, opic lookalike (variations are obvious...)

Being a normal lens and putting the word normal in someones photography seems a diminutive... something special like a ultra this or ultra that seems nicer...

The 105 2.4 is probably a lens that is better than most photographer´s technique as is the M7 lenses or hasselblad or bronica or pentacon six... the angle of view is what it is (you can take advantage of any of them) and it´s perspective is normal... that can be very good for making images, maybe not for showing the photographer´s big lens or waaaaiide view.

matrix metering is an amateurish thing intended for printing photos in minilabs made out of colour negative

i have been using a lot of lenses and in medium format and large format there are few that are disappointing... even the ones that i make... or lubitel and sputnik triplets...

people cite sites of lens testing and about a lens that has 120 vs 100 lines but never drum scanned nor enlarged a negative or a positive...