Any old cameras like the Fotoman Dmax?

[sevo]

Even then, could you bring it in under $200? Or even twice that?

A Mamiya Press 50/6.3 with glass damage, no hood and no finder recently sold for about $130 on ebay. Good, complete ones go for $400 up (Japanese sellers sometimes ask for less, but that amounts to the same once you add up shipping and import taxes) - and that is the lens only. So, no, not unless you find a body and film holder for free.

As I said, the best bet for shooting 6x7 with a serious wide angle and a really constrained budget would be a Mamiya RB or RZ with 50mm - these were common as lice, and are sold off by pros or dealers who attribute little sentimental value to them. But they are huge, heavy and no stripping effort will make them as small and light as a chopped-down Press.

 

[shadowfox]

I would highly recommend the MUP (Mamiya Universal Press).
The lenses are outstanding and the handling of the camera is more natural and easier than the camera bulk (or shape) may suggest.

 

[Jesse3Names]

Honestly, that Wanderlust Travelwide 4x5" is looking pretty good. While film costs >$2 per shot at the 4x5 size, if I'm going to shoot larger-than-35mm, I may as well shoot really big. But more importantly, the Wanderlust with a 65mm lens and their adapter kit (based on their camera price it can't be that expensive) would give me plenty of wide coverage on 4x5. I could still shoot 6x6-6x9 backs, just with a 35mm-equivalent coverage of about a 35mm lens. Not bad, but on 4x5 the coverage is more like a <24mm lens, which is fantastic. In my budget, I have to make sacrifices - one may be to not shoot as much 6x6 or 6x9 and instead make the jump to 4x5 to get the wide angle lenses I desire.

I was reading on a site that shall remain nameless, which I usually take with a grain of salt, that the Mamiya 23 was a poorly constructed camera. It's a cheap 6x9-capable-of-6x6 option with an available 50mm lens that's in my price range. I'm willing to spend upwards of $500 on the whole system, but I know that my budget seriously limits my options. My problem with these cameras, the Mamiya 23 or the Universal Press, is that the 50mm f/6.3 lens that I have found and believe to work with both of them is selling at $675. That's definitely more than my total budget would allow. I can't find a more affordable wide angle lens for that system.

With the Travelwide 4x5, where's the shutter release? Does it rely on a leaf shutter inside the lens that you have to fire with an attached cable release - is that included with most lenses/the camera body?

 

[sevo]

My problem with these cameras, the Mamiya 23 or the Universal Press, is that the 50mm f/6.3 lens that I have found and believe to work with both of them is selling at $675.

A fairly notorious group of high-price sellers offers one for that price, buy-it-now. That they haven't sold it for several years (if you look back into the sellers history) is a good indication that that offer is considerably above the regular going rate. Successful sales tend to be in the $400 range - you'll have to wait until one comes up for auction...

 

[Roger Hicks]

A 50/6.3 with glass damage, no hood and no finder recently sold for about $130 on ebay. Good, complete ones go for $400 up (Japanese sellers sometimes ask for less, but that amounts to the same once you add up shipping and import taxes). So, no, not unless you find a body and film holder for free.

As I said, the best bet for shooting 6x7 with a serious wide angle and a really constrained budget would be a Mamiya RB or RZ with 50mm - these were common as lice, and are sold off by pros or dealers who attribute little sentimental value to them. But they are huge, heavy and no stripping effort will make them as small and light as a chopped-down Press.

I'm sure you're right in all respects, but as you say of the RB/RZ, the WEIGHT!

Cheers,

R.

 

[Jerevan]

You have been misinformed. Grievously. Both focal length and aperture remain constant. Only coverage changes as a function of format. Thus my 38/4.5 has the equivalent coverage of 21mm on the 44x66mm format (Alpa) but it is still a 38/4.5: a modest f/4.5 wide-angle on 35mm.

Cheers,

R.

Roger,

The apparent depth of field at a fixed focal length and aperture does change as well moving through formats, right?

Apart from this - maybe the Cambo Wide or a Toyo 23? Otherwise, the Travelwide seems to be a good option, as mentioned before in the thread.

 

[Spanik]

The apparent depth of field at a fixed focal length and aperture does change as well moving through formats, right?

No, the Dof is only determined by focal length and aperture. It only changes if you compare to "equivalent" focal lengths on different formats. Like if you compare a 65mm in 6x6 with a 35mm is 24x36. The 65mm will have a smaller Dof but same(*) angular coverage than the 35mm.

But a 65mm "made for 6x6" will have the same Dof as a 65mm "made for 24x36". Difference in optical design between those 2 will be the coverage circle as one of them will need to cover 6x6 and the other only 24x36.

That's why all this nonsense about equivalence" is best forgotten and you are far better off keeping focal length and format separate. A given aperture and focal length will always give the same Dof, independend of format. And each focal length will have its angular coverage on a given format.

The worst is that "equivalence of total light" BS.

(*) making the abstraction that one is rectangular and the other square.

 

[Jerevan]

Okay - that means that the whole idea of www.dofmaster.com is pointless when it comes to comparing the various formats to each other for a given focal length.

 

[mbisc]

With the Travelwide 4x5, where's the shutter release? Does it rely on a leaf shutter inside the lens that you have to fire with an attached cable release - is that included with most lenses/the camera body?

Most LF lenses come with a shutter between the elements (Compur, Copal, and others), and yes, they are usually fired with a cable release to minimize vibration.

 

[thegman]

Horseman Convertible is not too badly priced, very small, and one of the more convenient to use 6x9 options out there.

I just came into possession of a Horseman SW612 with 6x9 and 6x12 backs, they're not cheap, but they are compared to some of the alternatives like Linhof 612 or Alpa.

Graflex SW is OK, but I didn't like the build one little bit.

If you don't mind maxing out at 6x9, Fotoman 69 is a lot cheaper than the DMAX.

Quite a few options out there, but if you want changeable backs up to 6x12, then it can get pricey. If you don't mind not having the changeable back, look at Gaoersi and Dayi.

 

[Jesse3Names]

The worst is that "equivalence of total light" BS.

I am getting there... full frame and cropped sensors are actually different formats, but they use the same mount (typically). It's easy to say, "of course they are," but not when you're nose is to the page trying to figure out why things don't make sense. I forgot the big picture - it's easy to with all the information available online, especially when I'm jumping between the major groups of formats: "small format" (mobile phones & smaller, APS-C/DX, and full frame/FX), MF, and LF. So I was confused between "designed for full frame" and "designed for APS-C" lenses. However, I'm worried that I'm falling victim to the "equivalence of total light" BS you speak of and I don't want to!

Here's what I know:

A 50/1.8 lens designed for a 35mm frame will be exactly that on a 35mm frame. Any other lens designed for any other format will perform accordingly. The focal length is the distance from the entrance pupil (the plane where the image comes into focus) to the film/sensor plane. The f-stop of a lens is a ratio of the diameter of the entrance pupil to the focal length while the lens is focused to infinity (to keep things standard across all diff. kinds of lenses).

Here are my questions:

[1] Where the image comes into focus at the entrance pupil, is the ENTIRE image in focus? If you could record the image as it appears in the plane of the entrance pupil, is the DoF apparent here or does that effect manifest as the light travels from the entrance pupil to the film/sensor plane? (This is just out of curiosity; maybe it will help me some day knowing it.)

[2] Lenses designed for MF frames such as 4.5x6, 6x9, and all those in-between MUST have larger diameter glass to accommodate for greater coverage. However, longer focal lengths are used than on the 35mm format. There has to be a trade-off between short lens mount-to-film plane distance and (b) focal length. There must be a reason why MF and LF camera bodies weren't designed with shorter lens mount-to-film plane distances. Is it because manufacturing wide angle glass is more difficult and/or expensive than telephoto glass and someone realized you can achieve the same coverage using a longer focal length further away from the film plane (so long as you can focus it adequately)? Is there something I'm missing here? I just don't fully understand why MF and LF bodies use longer lenses than 35mm bodies.

For now, these are my questions.

 

[Jesse3Names]

ADDENDUM - Back to address what I quoted in my previous reply. I was under the assumption that an f/8 MF lens collects the same amount of light as an f/8 35mm lens. However, after some consideration, I came to realize that f-stop is a ratio. If you increase focal length, you must ultimately increase the diameter of the entrance pupil to maintain the same f-number. So this gets back to an earlier point of confusion for me... using a 35mm lens on a cropped sensor (let's use 1.6x for the crop factor for the case of Canon's I have owned) should ultimately waste some of the amount of light that is distributed across the sensor. Some of the light misses the sensor and is wasted as it falls around the APS-C frame. Therefore, if you use a lens designed to perform normally on a 35mm frame, the focal length and aperture are effectively cropped as well. So a 50/1.8 lens appears to cover the same amount of area and expose the sensor with the same amount of light as an 80/2.8 lens that were designed to work with APS-C sensors. By that logic, you are not collecting the same "equivalence of total light" and are in fact utilizing a fraction of the light coming through the elements proportional to the crop factor of the sensor relative to a 35mm frame. Am I missing something? I'm not trying to be arrogant nor ignorant, just very careful with my words and thorough with describing my level of understanding.

 

[Scrambler]

The whole aperture equivalence will do your head in. Try googling "lens equivalence white paper"

Basically the same physical aperture will give the same DOF while the same total amount of light hitting the sensor will give the same amount of noise so a 1.6 crop means f-stop reduced by equivalent 2/3 stop (aperture opened) and sensor ISO reduced 2/3 stop as well.

It's easier math for m43 where it's 1/2 the lens and a full stop on the aperture.

Eg 50mm f2 @400 becomes 25 f1.4 at 200.

Mad hey? And still just an approximation.

 

[Scrambler]

And as for lens length on formats, that's dead easy.

A 50mm lens is one that has it's node 50mm from the image plane.

Take a piece of paper and draw a straight line on it. Now put a dot 50mm (or 2 inches if that's easier) from it. Now mark 36mm (or 1.5 inches) on the base line. Draw a line through the dot from each end of the 36mm line. This is the horizontal angle of view of a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera. Now extend that 36mm line out both sides to be 54mm in total. Now draw lines through the dot as above. This is the horizontal angle of view for a typical 6x6 MF camera 50mm lens. Notice that it is wider. Try other focal lengths. Or draw lines parallel to the 35mm ones and discover that they coincide at about 80mm.

 

[sevo]

Some of the light misses the sensor and is wasted as it falls around the APS-C frame. Therefore, if you use a lens designed to perform normally on a 35mm frame, the focal length and aperture are effectively cropped as well.

Entirely wrong. The aperture is the ratio between focal length and pupil size - if you crop, you crop coverage, a third, independent parameter. A lens with less coverage, but the same aperture and focal length, will be smaller (as a smaller segment of glass can illuminate the entire pupil and image area), but within the coverage of either lens, approximately the same number of photons will hit each point in the same time span (given a subject of homogeneous brightness).

 

[Solinar]

Roger,

The apparent depth of field at a fixed focal length and aperture does change as well moving through formats, right?

Not quite right - If two different format cameras a set up side by side at an equal distance from a given subject with the same focal length and aperture - you'll have two different images with regards to cropping the scene around the subject - but depth of field will be the same.

An 80mm lens @ f4 is going to have the same depth of field when it is used used on 35mm, 6cmx6cm or 4"x5" pieced of film on the side by side test as above.

There will be a difference in the "apparent depth of field" for the above - when the 35mm camera with a 80mm lens is backed away further from the subject - so that the 35mm camera captures a crop of whatever scene equal to or roughly the same as what will be recorded by 4"x5" camera with its 80mm lens.

I recently did a couple of exposures with a 6x9 from a distance of 5 feet. My zone of critically sharp focus @ f4 with a 105mm lens was only about 4" in depth.

I did get in trouble once with the size of the image circle while trying to use an 80m for a 6cm x 6cm on a 4x5 Graflex. The results were beyond vignetting.

Best Regards, on what can be a blurry subject.

 

[Texsport]

My solution to this dilemma has been use of the same lenses on the 3 Fujica MF 600 series bodies - 670,680,690.(50mm,65mm,100mm,150mm,and 180mm lenses available)

Additionally, the 100AE allows fast Aw controlled shooting + the Auto Up attachment allows close up portraits.

This is lot more compact than toting around a large format rig.

Texsport

 

[Jerevan]

Not quite right - If two different format cameras a set up side by side at an equal distance from a given subject with the same focal length and aperture - you'll have two different images with regards to cropping the scene around the subject - but depth of field will be the same.

Which means that we come back to the fact that www.dofmaster.com changes depth of field when moving from one format to another given the above statement. Something must be up - either with the laws of physics 🙂 or the math behind this page.

 

[Spanik]

Some of the light misses the sensor and is wasted as it falls around the APS-C frame. Therefore, if you use a lens designed to perform normally on a 35mm frame, the focal length and aperture are effectively cropped as well. So a 50/1.8 lens appears to cover the same amount of area and expose the sensor with the same amount of light as an 80/2.8 lens that were designed to work with APS-C sensors. By that logic, you are not collecting the same "equivalence of total light" and are in fact utilizing a fraction of the light coming through the elements proportional to the crop factor of the sensor relative to a 35mm frame. Am I missing something? I'm not trying to be arrogant nor ignorant, just very careful with my words and thorough with describing my level of understanding.

Yes, you're missing something. As Sevo already said, the intensity (#photons/surface/time) stays the same for a given aperture and light coming in. And that is what photography registers: intensities.

In a way the light outside the sensor is "wasted", but it only means that a lens with less glass that would trow a smaller image could work just as well. But that smaller lens would need just the same aperture to get the same exposure as a lens that trows a larger circle (the focal lenght being equal).

What they try to hide with the "equivalent total light" BS is that smaller pixels have more noise for a given sensor technology. So if you would make (with the same semiconductor tech) a large sensor that has 20 Mp of 6x6µm or a small one 20Mp of 2x2µm, then for a given light intensity the small one will have more noise.

My solution to this dilemma has been use of the same lenses on the 3 Fujica MF bodies - 6X7,6X8, and 6x9.(50mm,65mm,100mm,150mm,and 180mm lenses available) additionally, the 100AE allows fast Aw controlled shooting.the Auto Up attachment allows close up portraits.

This is lot more compact than toting around a large format rig.

That's another option. On the other hand, the first time I took a Fuji 6x9 with 4 lenses out was at the same time the last one. This is extremely heavy stuff.

However I'd like to know more about that 6x8 version 😀

 

[Jesse3Names]

My solution to this dilemma has been use of the same lenses on the 3 Fujica MF 600 series bodies - 670,680,690.(50mm,65mm,100mm,150mm,and 180mm lenses available)

Additionally, the 100AE allows fast Aw controlled shooting + the Auto Up attachment allows close up portraits.

This is lot more compact than toting around a large format rig.

Texsport

I did some brief research on the Fuji/Fujica GSW690 body, but the 50mm lens available in that mount is (1) expensive and (2) extremely hard to find. Although they are more compact than a LF rig, I can't afford $1000 for a MF/LF camera. The widest affordable lens I can get for that camera is 65mm and it's just a bit more expensive than I want to pay for a new camera rig.