Mamiya 7 150mm lens question

chris000

chris000

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Grateful if one of you can advise - I want to add a 150mm lens to my Mamiya 7 kit - do I need a separate viewfinder?

I've found some second hand lenses on offer but they do not include a viewfinder, so can I use it without?

thanks
 
I believe that there was separate viewfinder made for it, but I used to have this lens, didn't have an external viewfinder, and never felt the need for one.
I sold this lens to pay for other equipment; I'm sorry I did.
 
Just as a heads up, the 150 seems to be almost universally hated. It's the sharpest lens in the Mamiya system, but is apparently maddeningly hard to focus with the rangefinder... Also, the 150 bright line is rather small in the viewfinder, so it can be difficult to compose. And finally, the close focus is on the long side, so the max magnification is actually less than the 80mm.

I have heard some people like it as a landscape lens, which makes sense... Scale focus to infinity, and you're using the sharpest lens in MF...
 
User Error

User Error

Hated? Just search flickr and look at a few images - it's a superb lens. I think that the problem arises when people move from 35mm to MF. They don't appreciate how shallow DOF is. At 5 feet and f/5.6, the DOF is 2.5".

http://dofmaster.com/doftable.html


bensyverson said:
Just as a heads up, the 150 seems to be almost universally hated. It's the sharpest lens in the Mamiya system, but is apparently maddeningly hard to focus with the rangefinder... Also, the 150 bright line is rather small in the viewfinder, so it can be difficult to compose. And finally, the close focus is on the long side, so the max magnification is actually less than the 80mm.

I have heard some people like it as a landscape lens, which makes sense... Scale focus to infinity, and you're using the sharpest lens in MF...
Click to expand...
 
I never found the brightline in the viewfinder to be too small. I used the 150mm occasionally for dance photography, sometimes in difficult situations.
I sold it only because it was the most saleable equipment I had, and because I did use the 80mm and 43mm lenses much more.
 
bensyverson said:
I have heard some people like it as a landscape lens, which makes sense... Scale focus to infinity, and you're using the sharpest lens in MF...
Click to expand...

Well, it's too late now, I bought it today in London 🙂

Landscape is mostly what I do and it is roughly a focal length (equivalent of) that I have used and liked in other formats. Un less I have some close foreground interest, I rarely use the rangefinder for focusing. Here's hoping for some interesting conditions to try it out this weekend!
 
RObert Budding said:
I think that the problem arises when people move from 35mm to MF. They don't appreciate how shallow DOF is. At 5 feet and f/5.6, the DOF is 2.5".
Click to expand...

I guess you're right... I was excited about it at first, because I thought it could be a good portrait lens, but it actually has less magnification than the 80...
 
I have the 150 and it came with a viewfinder. I use the viewfinder on occasion, but usually just the small brightline. It is a fine lens and I have no issue focusing it in any situation.
 
I have the 150 and it came with a viewfinder. I use the viewfinder on occasion, but usually just the small brightline. It is a fine lens and I have no issue focusing it in any situation.
Click to expand...
same here. If the rangefinder is 'calibrated' OK, no problems in focusing. The camera 150mm frame are brighter than the external finder??. But the external finder is positioned over the lens axis, and shows a slightly different image than the camera frames. Should cause no problems with photos taken a far distance. I try and use the external finder if I can, but it's no big deal.
 
bensyverson said:
I guess you're right... I was excited about it at first, because I thought it could be a good portrait lens, but it actually has less magnification than the 80...
Click to expand...

You get pretty close to the same magnification as the 80mm, but the perspective is much better for portraits. I never cared much for tight head shots - to me, environmental shots are much more interesting.
 
Love the 7, but that 150 is giving me fits. I shoot almost exclusively MF of various stripes--so I'm familiar with DOF issues--yet I find it very tough to focus the 150. When it is in focus, it's unbeatable; but getting it there takes some work. Everything's been calibrated, so I can't blame the lens or camera. It's just tough to get things to line up in that tiny frame with the subject some distance away.

Before the M7, I'd never shot a rangefinder before. Love the camera, but I came to it with the MF SLR mindset that the 150 would be the "ideal" focal length for portraiture. Maybe strictly by the focal-length numbers it is; but in this system it's not. It is my least-used lens, even though portraiture is my most-shot genre.

Turns out, this limitation has been a benefit; like someone else alluded to here, it's forced me out of my usual tight-headshot mode and into a more global way of seeing portrait subjects as part of their surroundings.

The Mamiya 7 and its lenses are really a spectacularly good system, when their limitations are respected.
 
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