Leica M8 vs Mamiya 7

[Richard Marks]

We are pretty much back where this thread started. No doubt about it if you need massive enlargements medium and large formats will always win through in terms of resolution. But the spontaneity of the smaller camera with fast lenses in low light takes some beating for portrait work (IMHO). Resolving everything down to the last hair follicle is not always as important as all that. For me this is where the M8 delivers. Its not inherently better, I simply state my preference which might as much as anything reflect the technical limits of my abilities. I agree a traditional wet MF can be stunning (and i shoot develop and print at least 2 rolls per week), but its a very different style of portrait to my Leica M work.

Incidentally you can not miss with just about any camera in China. Its a superb trip. I was actually working in an operating theatre the 2 times i was there and a Nikon FM2 with 35 f2 did all that i could have asked.

Happy new year to all

Richard

Attached portrait with M8 50mm f2 at f2 and 1/15, ISO 640

 

[Tony C.]

I've been following this thread with interest, though have never used, and am unlikely to use a medium format camera. I don't doubt for a second that MF results, properly shot, scanned and printed, are superior to the M8 in terms of resolution. But as Richard and others have pointed out, many photographers (myself included) are not concerned with maximum resolution, and, in fact, often prefer a softer, less clinical look. That is, of course, why some choose certain Leica lenses over Zeiss.

I am basically echoing the point made by Richard and Stuart, which is that there is no clear-cut answer to this question; each format (and camera) brings its own strengths and weaknesses. And frankly, the idea that MF is simply "better" is laughable. Imagine that there were a brush (and perhaps there is) which allows a painter to paint exraordinarily fine, intricate pictures. Would that brush be superior to brushes which produce wider, softer results? Of course not, except within a narrow confine.

The attached photo of my 88 year-old father was taken with my M8 and Noctilux, and, while I understand that medium format could have created a very different image, it would not – and could not have been – the sort of image which I was attempting to create.

All the best for the New Year to everyone.

Regards,

Tony C.

 

[Richard Marks]

Mamiya 7D anyone?

 

[RObert Budding]

I don't own an M8, but I do shoot 35mm and I own a Mamiya 7.

Different formats excel in different situations. I use my Mamiya 7 when there is plenty of light and when I want to make larger prints with excellent tonality. Miniature format cameras, on the other hand, are better in lower light and provide greater DOF for a set angle of view because the lenses are wider. Smaller and more convenient, too.

 

[picturetraveler]

M8 and mamiya 7

M8 and mamiya 7

Hello everyone,


interesting thread... have a mamiya 6 a screen drumscanner and M 8 and a Noctilux...nothing can beat the noctilux... as you can almost work in the dark...but 120 film and a good scanner will not be beaten with the M8...

The only advice I can give you is that if you have a good systhem that works for you...stick to it.

Happy shooting


Regards from Gent Belgium

Marc De Clercq

 

[Turtle]

Mamiya 7 lenses (unless something is wrong) as absolutely breathtakingly sharp wide open. In absolute sharpness/resolution terms there is nothing out there to better them, but perhaps a few that come close....maybe....on a good day with a tail wind. Personally, I have never seen any MF optics better them.

As for slowness, that they are, but in terms of DOF, it is not so clear. The Mamiya 80mm at f4 produces about the same DOF as a 40mm at F2 on a 35mm camera. Many people wax lyrical about their 40 f2 summicron or 35 asph cron.....SAME DOF as far as I am aware. Remember that with MF you are using a longer foacl length. Another good DOF example would be the mamiya 150 f4.5....should be the same as a 75mm at a hair over f2 or so i.e. the Summicron 75!!!!

Please someone corect me if the above is incorrect. I do of course realise that for a given film speed, one struggles, but one can always use faster film when a tripod or monopad cannot be used. I am not suggesting that the M7 is as convenient as a small RF - it is not, hence the reason I use my Leica so much over and above my RF645 for walkabout stuff.

Scanning/upresing is not my thing, so I will not comment there, but I find it perplexing that people so frequently talk about being bowled over by Leica glass but I suspect few have had the typical experience with mamiya 7 lenses - these are absolutely breathtaking and I have not personally seen anything like them (RF645 lenses are similar perhaps but then again any RF has the same optical benefits in lens design I guess).

See: http://www.hevanet.com/cperez/MF_testing.html

 

[Richard Marks]

I thought this old warhorse of a thread was good and burried!

75 lux at f1.4 hand held at 1/30
I personally can not for the life of me imagine getting this kind of effect with a mamiya 7

 

[jaap]

I thought this old warhorse of a thread was good and burried!

75 lux at f1.4 hand held at 1/30
I personally can not for the life of me imagine getting this kind of effect with a mamiya 7
View attachment 57369

that might be your problem !

 

[Todd.Hanz]

I thought this old warhorse of a thread was good and burried!

75 lux at f1.4 hand held at 1/30
I personally can not for the life of me imagine getting this kind of effect with a mamiya 7
View attachment 57369

I agree with the fact that you'll never be able to focus as closely but as far as bokeh and the 3D-ish nature the Mamiya 7II and 80/4 do a pretty nice job...

cropped:

these were scanned on an archaic epson 2450, both shot at f4...not to shabby but the M8 will focus closer and be a bit smaller.


So what did the original poster decide on?

Todd

 

[Richard Marks]

that might be your problem !

Well it would be my problem JAAP if I was using a Mamiya 7, but as I am not it is not my problem.

However lets consider how we could get this with the Mamiya, the 75mm on an M8 checks in at around 100mm effective focal length (35mm currency). The equivalent lens on the Mamiya would be the 200mm in 6x7. It does not have rangefinder focusing. Fastest apperture I am guessing F4.5. I dont see it producing the same kind of selective focusing, and then throw in the hand held element and the M8 is looking good. The Mamiya 150mm lens might be the better bet, but again it does not focus close enough and I have heard it said that there are issues of accuracy of close focusing this lens. (I never owned this one). Entirely subjective but the bokeh from the lux IMHO is fairly distinctive. Doubtless the Mamiya would give my lowly M8 a good trouncing on sharpness with big enlargements but as I said a few months back in this post there is more to overall image quality than resolving power.

Regards

Richard

 

[Richard Marks]

I agree with the fact that you'll never be able to focus as closely but as far as bokeh and the 3D-ish nature the Mamiya 7II and 80/4 do a pretty nice job...

cropped:

these were scanned on an archaic epson 2450, both shot at f4...not to shabby but the M8 will focus closer and be a bit smaller.


So what did the original poster decide on?

Todd

Todd the 80 does a great job. I am not denying the great qualities of this camera. Its just for me in low light, hand held close focus portraits it is not preferable for me.

I do not think it can do the job of my 75 lux

 

[jaap]

Maybe it would be better to base our opinion on good processed raw or negatives printed on paper Instead of little jpegs on a monitor. Maybe a lot of people would come to other conclusions then. Even with 35mm tmax 400 good exposed and processed can give beautifull results without grain on a 8*10 print. So good that it's often hard tell wether it's 35mm or 120.

 

[Richard Marks]

Maybe it would be better to base our opinion on good processed raw or negatives printed on paper Instead of little jpegs on a monitor. Maybe a lot of people would come to other conclusions then. Even with 35mm tmax 400 good exposed and processed can give beautifull results without grain on a 8*10 print. So good that it's often hard tell wether it's 35mm or 120.

I agree entirely. And even then what makes a good image is still subjective. At the end of the day there is no substitute for trying something out and this is what I said in this thread a few months back. But internet forums are still fun and this particular thread has generated some interesting discussion actually about photography.
Best wishes
Richard

 

[TJV]

It's late and I can't sleep

It's late and I can't sleep

While I agree the Leica glass, through wide aperture and discrete form, enable the taking of many intimate, candid and aesthetically beautiful images, lets not compare apples to oranges here.
The Mamiya can also be used like a Leica but by nature of some technical differences will produce a different photo.

I think for me, an owner of several Leica-M's, a Mamiya 7ii and formally three defective M8's (still like the camera, regardless,) I use them all to fill different gaps. Any type of medium format camera triggers something in my brain to take more time and be less trigger happy. Having said this I NEVER think about money when I shoot any format even though I am in huge debt because of it! The Leica kit (28 - 50mm glass, I don't like longer) gets used like a sketch pad, but to look at the images I take with it aren't too dissimilar than the ones taken with my Mamiya kit (just 65 and 80mm.)

I agree, there at times when the "limits" of the Mamiya make me wish my Leica was at hand, but then the reverse feelings apply also. Sometimes I just know I'd be better off being able to push more out of a larger neg.

An M8 would fill a gap somewhere on an extreme for me. I'd use it more for diary like projects, documentation and things that require fast turnaround or editing on the fly.

 

[Richard Marks]

While I agree the Leica glass, through wide aperture and discrete form, enable the taking of many intimate, candid and aesthetically beautiful images, lets not compare apples to oranges here.
The Mamiya can also be used like a Leica but by nature of some technical differences will produce a different photo.

I think for me, an owner of several Leica-M's, a Mamiya 7ii and formally three defective M8's (still like the camera, regardless,) I use them all to fill different gaps. Any type of medium format camera triggers something in my brain to take more time and be less trigger happy. Having said this I NEVER think about money when I shoot any format even though I am in huge debt because of it! The Leica kit (28 - 50mm glass, I don't like longer) gets used like a sketch pad, but to look at the images I take with it aren't too dissimilar than the ones taken with my Mamiya kit (just 65 and 80mm.)

I agree, there at times when the "limits" of the Mamiya make me wish my Leica was at hand, but then the reverse feelings apply also. Sometimes I just know I'd be better off being able to push more out of a larger neg.

An M8 would fill a gap somewhere on an extreme for me. I'd use it more for diary like projects, documentation and things that require fast turnaround or editing on the fly.

I agree each has its place. I simply have stated what is unique and valuable to me concerning the Leica M and optics. I actually still have a mamiya TLR set up (its very reasonably priced) and can never accept being completely without a medium format camera. For me the real joy is printing from MF black and white negatives. They are just so big and easy to work with. I never really hit it off with my Mamiya 7ii and ultimately swapped it for a Hassy. The 120 Makro Planar lens was superb for close up portraits. I was happy to replace this with my M8 and do not really miss it. I really do rate the 75 lux (both on film or M8) and personally much prefer this to medium format options for most portraits in available light. It suits my style.

I do know what you mean about more deliberation using medium format. I think the limited number of exposures on a roll focuses the mind a bit as does using a tripod.

Oh and I forgot then there is my Holga. Again unique optical properties.

Regards

Richard

 

[pss]

i don't have a mamiya 7 but i have owned pretty much every other MF system...including fuji 680, 670 and 690....now i shoot m8 whenever i can....digital files are just different...i used to have a P30 and the files are smooth up to 16x20...i don't think there is any film that is THAT smooth...simply no grain at all...even a drum scanned 4x5 file will show grain (4x5 film actually has generally bigger grain then 35mm film , but that is a differnt story...)...somebody here mentioned struth or gursky..i have seen those prints up close and they look like superhuge film prints....a little soft compared to digital prints...so anyway...digital and film is just different...whatever floats your boat and so on....
i included a full frame (actually 3 frames or better 1 frame with some additional pieces on each side) print 16x30 at 240dpi...m8 CV35 2.5 (not the sharpest) shot through a window (heavily tinted) out to santa monica pier..i was shooting a job when the fog came in...so i took this...never really do this kind of shot and never really print that big (which is why i got rid of the P30 and shoot with the m8 now)...so there it goes...shot at 160asa, uprez'd in GF and grain added in GF....without the grain this would look way too smooth and plasticy..the grain barely shows in print..just makes it more realistic....detail is the center of frame..

 

[JeffGreene]

... that means a rangefinder, and the only game in town for the quality I hope to achieve is the M8. So my main question is, how big can I practically uprez before I see a loss in image quality. Is 20" x 24" achieveable when the optics are not a limitation (as they are on so many DSLR systems), and how would this print compare to one derived from the process described above for the Mamiya 7.

Dick Arentz discusses some of the issues you raise with respect to uprezing in his article on the "Leica M8 and the Platinum/Palladium Print" in the January issue of Rangefinder. He has adopted Burkholder's digital negative approach using Pictorico film. I have been experimenting myself, but with my RD1, since I don't own an M8, but expect I will some day. 🙄

Hope you find it useful. 🙂

Respectfully,

Jeff

 

[jplomley]

Sorry folks, I lost track of this thread. For some reason I stopped getting email alerts??? I ended up trading in my M6TTL towards an M8, taking a big leap of faith. I have had the camera all of one day and already ripped a nice 16x20 last evening on the Epson 7800. Quality is amazing for a 10 MP camera, but it is not Mamiya 7 + Cezanne scan quality at this image size. But I sort of expected that. I'm using Capture One Pro for RAW processing with Jamie Roberts profiles until my UV/IR filters arrive from Leica. I will probably buy Genuine Fractals which should help with the up-rezzing quality. I'm still in the early stages of developing a workflow with the M8, so i only expect image quality will improve. I'm currently using a Zeiss 35/2 Biogon which really performs beautifully on the M8. Focus at f/2.0 is spot on, so I guess I got lucky after reading several posts on focussing accuracy issues. I will eventually get around to a direct comparison against the Mamiya 7 once I have the max IQ nailed down on the M8.

Cheers to everyone for your contributions.

 

[Symeon]

What is your priority

What is your priority

For quality I would go for the Mamiya, but for versatility, stealth and invisibility (which you may need in China) I would go the M8.
Regards.😎

 

[jan normandale]

Digital is one way to make life simpler in these "fast paced times" where workflow and timelines are short.

FWIW I visited China in 2004 and needed a neutral density filter for my Mamiya 6 RF (it's close to an M7). The Beijing camera store staff all knew what I had and all went over it closely. I wouldn't be worried about your M7 in China. They already know what they are.

BTW Interesting thread for RFF.