Mamiya7II or Xpan 2?

[Hiyawaan]

Hi, I'm a newbie to rangefinders and I've got a dilema here.
I'm looking to get in to panoramic photography and am currently looking in to the Hasselbal X panII or the Mamiya 7II. They're about the same price for a body with one lens(the 45 for the pan and the 65 for the 7). I cant afford any other lenses for a while and the hassy30mm is super pricy too!
So here come the questions: 1)Is the 7's 35mm addapter as bad as I've read, I like to print full frame and show the perfs. 2)Whats does the 45mm lens on the xpan become when in pano vision? Since the mamiya only crops the top and bottom of the film plane the lens focal lengh stays the same, right? but the hassys gets wider? 3) if im not mistaken the lenses on the mamiya do not require an additional filter due to light drop off, so the 7's one stop faster, amoot point since the dof is reduced in the larger format. 4) or do they have the same dof in pano mode? I'm interested in enviromental portraiture using the panoramic aspect ration as well as street photography. To be honest I'm leaning more to the 7II causes of the neg size but i'm also looking to lighten my load.
any input appreciated.
alex

 

[MP Guy]

i have had both systems mentioned, I had the 7ii with a 45 and the 80. Excellent camera and the size of the negative is really good. I have since sold the gear and currently have an xpan II with a 45 and a 30. Although the size of the negative is considerably less, I find it meets my needs. Yes the mamiya lenses are faster but I am facinated with the 30mm from fuji/hasselblad. Its an incredible aspherical lens with superb edge to edge sharpness and contrast. I rarely use the xpan for street shooting due to the slow lens but its my favorite hiking camera due to its weight and features. I can suggest both cameras but you its your needs that will dictate what you should buy. keep in mind both negatives are the samed width. you just lose top and bottom. The xpan is definetly a tripod camera when it comes to low light level. But it just makes you compose better. 🙂 What type of photography do you plan on mainly doing?

I think the perfect combo for me will my xpan with the addition of a fuji gsw690.

good luck.

 

[Doug]

Hi Alex -- I have not had the XPan, but from what I hear and see it's a superb instrument. The ability to switch to 24x36 format adds some excellent flexibility. Using faster films handheld, or with a tripod with slower films, it should be able to handle environmental portraiture in either format.

This is the genre of photography I've been pursuing for the past couple of years, primarily with 645 format rangefinder cameras with 45 and 60-65mm lenses and fast color neg film.

Starting with a larger negative makes it less painful to crop some off opposite sides for a pano appearance. I've done this cropping in 6x7 format too, with 45mm and longer lenses. Unfortunately there's no 30mm lens for this camera! But one advantage of this approach is that you can crop it all off just top or bottom to give the effect of lens rise or fall.

I see a couple of misperceptions come up in your question... Lenses don't change focal length, except for zooms. 🙂 A 45mm lens is always a 45mm lens, with depth-of-field appropriate for a 45mm lens at a given aperture and subject distance.

But it's field of view that changes with film format change. It's hard to directly compare fields of view when the proportions of the film frame are different, such as between the 56x56mm square format of a Hasselblad SLR and the 24x65mm (is that correct?) of the XPan.

To help comparisons, a "normal" lens angle of view will be about equal to the length of the film diagonal. That's 43mm for a 24x36mm format, and about 90mm for the 6x7cm format. Just about a 2:1 ratio of focal lengths giving the same field of view, for easy comparisons between these two formats.

The XPan's 45mm lens is about normal for the 24x36 format setting on the camera, but when switched to the pano mode, the film now "sees" a much wider view through the lens. I could get about the same wide view angle with a 24mm lens on a Leica...

Happy shopping! 🙂

 

[Hiyawaan]

RE:What type of photography do you plan on mainly doing?
Currently I shoot Fashion and portraiture on my trusty Eos 3, some times I whip out my Yashica-C when I'm in the mood for some thing different, I shoot candids and street photography on an olympus 35sp and sometimes a canonette Q17?(but the lenses aren't wide enough and the Q's light meter is fried) then again some time I lug my Eos around but I tend to attract attention. Maybe cause I like to shoot wide and close to my subject, maybe cause I'm 6'4" and built like a brick Sh*t house wearing a Hawian shirt, maybe cause I'm a self medicated Bi polar nutter. Its hard to say. Truthfully I should buy an RZ67 as its one of the most versatile cameras around but it a beastie!Yes I know its not a range finder but it focuses closer than a meter! Great for Fashion and portrature and my chiropractors. I dont think I need a range finder, but I want one all the same. Maybe I should get a Contax G2 and learn to stitch frames together in PS? I guess what I really want is a range finder with interchangable lens. But I saw some portraits shot in pano mode and find the framing possibilities alluring.
Alex

 

[oftheherd]

Hiyawaan,

You might want to consider the Mamiya Universal/Press 23 cameras. They are system cameras with interchangable backs and lenses. The 50mm lens is great. Of course, that may not be wide enough. I have never used it with 6x9 film, but from what I have read, there is no light falloff even with 6x9. There is none with 6x7. The drawbacks, other than all are used, is that they are heavier than 35mm rangefinders (but not as heavy as you might suspect), and they are rather bulky. Still, nice systems for less money. Sorry, the 50mm is not an easy item to find and not cheap, but probably less than the two systems you mentioned.

I think jdos2 may have that system also. Perhaps he can comment.