Mamiya 7 - 50mm or 80mm?

You shoot landscapes and you already have a 43mm?

You can probably buy both the 150mm & the 80mm lenses for the same price as just the 50mm. I'd suggest those two above a single 50mm lens.




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If you have the mamiya 43mm, and the decision is between the 50mm or the 80mm, it is clear that you'll get much more focal length versatility with a 43/80 combo than with a 43/50 combo. However, if you are trying to decide between a "standard" focal length 80 or 65 to combine with your 43mm, then that's a harder decision which you'll have to make in terms of your thinking about the 3,5cm focal length ... the 65mm is just slightly wider than a 35 (~32mm in 135 format), whereas the 80mm is slightly narrower (at ~ 39mm in 135 format); which is to say, not a massive FL difference. I went with the 80/4 as my standard mamiya7 lens over the 65mm because I prefer its slightly tighter framing as well as the slightly smaller form/weight of the 80mm... But there's nothing for it, the rendering of either lens is just great.
 
Sorry, I havent kept this thread up to date. Finally I decided to go for the 50mm. Why? Hmm, I am a fan of wideangle lenses. Of course, the 80mm lens is more versatile and it could also be used for landscape photography. For me, the 50mm lens is more precious, because it is more complex and rarly to find - the price is one reason for it. So it made more sense for me having the 50mm with an option to get the 80mm than the other way round. I think its like the 45mm lens and the 21mm in the Contax G-System. Both lenses are fantastic, but the 21mm Biogon is hard to find while the 45mm Planar was sold a thousend times more.

But I'm grateful for all of your suggestions, because it helped me to deal with my expectations for this system. Sometimes it helps to know what you don't want.
As I expected, the 50mm is a fantastic lens. It is a wideangle without having this typical wideangle-look. In an other thread i wrote, that I used more like a longer focal length lens. An other point for this decision was the question what I really wan't to photograph. As I said, I mainly use the M7 for landscapephotography. I noticed, that in most scenarios I ended up with the wish for a wider lens than a longer like the 65mm or 80mm. So the 43mm lens and the 50mm lens are perfect for me. As a third lens, which is at the moment far away for me, I could imagine the 150mm instead of the 80mm.

Here you see two shots from my first rolls with the M7
 
Mamiya 7 50mm vs 80mm

Mamiya 7 50mm vs 80mm

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I have a few uninspired photos that give a FOV comparison between these two great lenses in the hope that it might control GAS!! Regards,Peter
 
Mamiya 7 50mm vs 80mm

Mamiya 7 50mm vs 80mm

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U41336I1358787086.SEQ.1.jpg

More photos for a FOV comparison,(sorry about the size of the first two),I'm still on a learning curve concerning posting pics!
Regards,Peter
 
A couple more from Mamiya 7

A couple more from Mamiya 7

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Another couple of FOV comparisons with these two Mamiya lens,this time with my favourite tranny film, Provia 100F .Regards,Peter
ps: the 50mm lens had the 81b filter
 
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Thank you Peter for posting these pictures! They are fantastic. Just to get it right: They were shot with the 50mm and 80mm lens?
 
I wish I could post a few scans from my last rolls, but I have no scanner 🙁. In the end I got the 50mm instead of the 80mm. And I am happy with it, of course I can't tell anything about longer lenses on the Mamiya 7, but in my last shooting I used the 43mm and 50mm for the same scene just to get an idea, how they work for me. It turned out, that the 50mm works perfectly for me. Its image quality is also excellent - just like the Canon 40mm STM for my DSLR (sorry, it's not a RF-lens, but its quality is a reference for me)
 
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