new 645 rf camera- does anybody else want one?

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jpberger

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I've been looking at 645 cameras, and not finding the one I really want which would be:

a rangefinder--
with a selection of interchangeable lenses including an ultra-wide, and a fast normal lens (as in the 80 1.9 on the Mamiya 645, and 80 f/2 on contax 645) and a short tele
Ideally easy to hold in both portrait and landscape orientation.

The Bronica rf has only 3 slowish lenses of closely spaced focal lengths.

The various Fuji cameras are nice but they don't have interchangable lenses, and again only f/4

The 645 slrs are great, and a crazy bargain these days, but I like rangefinders better.

The Mamiya 6/7 are great, but I'd rather get a few more shots per roll, and again a faster lens or two.

I imagine the challenge in making such a thing would be that it would need a fairly wide rf base, and thus precise manufacturing tolerances Faster lenses would probably mean a focal plane shutter and slow flash sync, but seeing as there are lots of mf cameras with leaf shutters it would be a reasonable compromise.
 
Four lenses for the Bronica actually:

45mm 65mm 100mm and 135mm ... the 135mm is seldom seen and the 100mm is not much better!
 
I don't think you are going to find what you are looking for simply because it does not exist for 645 rf. If want wide and fast then an SLR is the way to go- and it will cost you a lot less. Always a compromise!
 
If someone was to make such a camera it frightens me to think what it may cost judging by the price of the recent Bessa folder! 😱
 
Keith said:
If someone was to make such a camera it frightens me to think what it may cost judging by the price of the recent Bessa folder! 😱
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Yah I agree It would have to be well north of $2k to be viable from a manufacturing standpoint, and if 35mm rfs are a niche market 120 rfs must be a sliver market, but still..
 
Glad to see mentions of the 80mm 1.9. I just got one, but it was kind of a pain to find one in really good condition. I just don't think many of those lenses were made, which is odd considering the target audience for the camera. (i.e. dark wedding photos.)

That said, I agree with the others. You can get what you want but in an SLR format, and no one's going to make the investment on a new design at this point. Shrug.
 
I have two Bronica RF645s, very fond of them and the lenses. At least f/2.8 would be quite useful, and should be practical offerings. Hard to believe that would require a focal plane shutter (f/2 might well), but then this camera uses electronically controlled and motor-reset shutters that might not be readily available in larger size.

I'm pretty well convinced Bronica/Tamron would have offered a wider lens, perhaps 30 or 35mm, had the market not collapsed and cut short the camera's sales.

I don't really understand the apparently strong preference for horizontal orientation. I quite like the portrait "half-frame" orientation, especially useful for people pics... and I have done a lot of that with my RF645s, and the GA645Wi as well. These environmental portraits with indoor lighting could use a faster lens too... And if that speed would require a longer RF baseline, then that shouldn't be hard to manage.
 
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If you want a medium format negative..you go 6x6. Then you have the opportunity for F2 or F2.8 lenses on either Hassy or SL66 or the 6008. I you expect to find a fast medium lens. These are the only real high quality options. So you get the extra negative you mask the corners and you see both a vert 645 and a horiz 645 outline. Dont make this hard. If you go Pentax 67 then you get a perfect format but still not anything fast.

I do not have a problem with a F4 lens. On anything over a normal lens up close you have almost zero depth of field anyway! On a 165mm F2.8 you have Zero until you hit at least F8 and at a distance over 30 feet. All medium format lenses are F4 at best. Pick you poison. You just need to understand that you cant always have your cake and eat it to.
 
Keith said:
Four lenses for the Bronica actually:

45mm 65mm 100mm and 135mm ... the 135mm is seldom seen and the 100mm is not much better!
Click to expand...
hi Keith,
do you know anyone using this 4 lenses on the same body:angel:?I think it's possible to have the 4 frame mounted into the finder😱 but I don't know if the RF calibration will work with the 100 & 135 lenses!🙄close range focousing sould be critical?
 
wide open (f4) on 6x4.5 throws a ton of stuff out of focus, especially if you are focused reasonably close.

The longer lenses (100 or 135) focused down to near their minimum would have quite shallow DOF. When I'm working close with the 65mm I have to be careful not to miss the focus if the aperture is opened up a bit.

If fast 2.8 or 2(!) lenses had been made:
1. We'd be complaining about weight.
2. We'd be complaining about image quality, fall off, vignetting etc.
3. We'd be complaining about size.
4. We wouldn't be able to afford them.

The longer required baseline would have made the body larger, or the mag in the VF would have been higher (for a longer EBL), effectively making it mandatory to use an external finder for the 45mm (it's starting to grow in size...).

The Bronica has really gained a following in the last few years because people realised what they had missed out on when it was in production. There was not a huge reception for it when it debuted (let's be honest, a lot of people turned their noses up because it had 'Bronica' written on the front).

It is quiet, COMPACT, has a wide lens, a normal(ish) and a long. Almost like a leica with a 28mm, 45mm and 65-70mm set of glass. Sounds like a group of lenses that allow you to do A LOT. (and is compact...).

On a completely different track, a P67 with the standard 105 (2.4 by memory) is an excellent, sharp CHEAP setup. But if you're needing 2.4 because it is dark, then that barn-door sized mirror and shutter will be your enemy. The Bronnie RF, Mami7/6 and the like will sit steady in your hands as the little leaf shutter chirps away at just a little over a stop slower.

TomA's original softie is a glorious addition to the BronRF645.

I should stop, I don't think I'm contributing much to this thread.
 
How about an Ermanox 6x4.5 cm format with 85mm f/1.8 lens. 🙄

Ernemann-Ermanox-4.5x6.jpg



Unfortunately there's no rangefinder and roll film backs are probably scarcer than the camera.

Google for some good famous images by Erich Salomon circa 1924.
 
Davo said:
wide open (f4) on 6x4.5 throws a ton of stuff out of focus, especially if you are focused reasonably close.
Click to expand...

well, as much DOF as f/2.8 lens on 35mm - not particularly shallow DOF @ 1m focusing distance. But I agree about your comments on the size and weight of such a lens if it would be f/2.8 or even f/2. But to have that option, however expensive and large, would be nice. Not everybody buys Nokton 35/1.2, but you can if you want/need it. The real problem here is that the market is not large enough to introduce large and fast MF RF lenses. I do not believe that the cost would have to be prohibitive - it would be still "just" f/2.8 or f/2.0 - plenty of lenses like that out there and they do not cost a first born.

45mm lens from Bronica does require external viewfinder already anyhow. Longer effective rangefinder base length would mean that 135mm still could be used. All MF rangefinders have shorter effective base length than Zeiss Ikon, so I guess the bigger bodies could be used to implement more precise rangefinders.

Apart from possibly faster lenses what may or may not make sense, closer focusing lenses WOULD make a lot of sense - again the main limitation is the rangefinder precision in all current MF RF cameras.

The true issue could be to make this very precise (long base) rangefinder robust enough such that it keeps in alignment as because of the precision required it would have to be "better" than the 35mm rangefinders.

*****
And now let me make one more wish - keep the lens mount collapsible like on the Mamiya 6 :angel:
 
Debusti Paolo said:
hi Keith,
do you know anyone using this 4 lenses on the same body:angel:?I think it's possible to have the 4 frame mounted into the finder😱 but I don't know if the RF calibration will work with the 100 & 135 lenses!🙄close range focousing sould be critical?
Click to expand...
Hi -- I have the three lenses excluding the 135, while one of my RF645 bodies has the original 135mm framelines (ready should I ever find the lens available!), and the other is later production with the 100mm framelines. The RF is the same, just the framelines are different, and to the best of my understanding, both lenses will focus correctly on both bodies.

I have not used the external 45mm finder, as I make do with the full field of the camera finder. I only miss the parallax correction offered for the 65 and longer lens... but then the external finder has only dotted lines as a guide to even more parallax anyway!
 
I have used a Contax 645 with the 80mm f2.0 lens, and at close focus the depth of field is very shallow. While there are other medium format cameras with f2.8 lenses, they are far larger and heavier as SLR bodies than a rangefinder. The reason to have a rangefinder is for the relatively compact size of the body and lenses. If Bronica accommodated an f2.8 lens design, then somewhere the body would have needed to be larger in some dimension. Once it gets larger, then the advantage over a medium format SLR is lost.

I agree with the design ideas that enabled the creation of the RF645, and I cannot find anything I would do differently, other than I would hope for an even wider widest lens. Of course, I have more than one camera, and I never expected the RF645 to be the one camera that did everything. It does seem to be the camera some enjoy criticizing, which is why I think it was not as successful as hoped when it was originally launched. I feel that people who want to do macro shots or tight head shots are far better off with an SLR, and as good as I think an RF645 is as a camera, I would never recommend one for tight close-up shots.
 
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