new 645 rf camera- does anybody else want one?

[Debusti Paolo]

Hi -- I have the three lenses excluding the 135, while one of my RF645 bodies has the original 135mm framelines (ready should I ever find the lens available!), and the other is later production with the 100mm framelines. The RF is the same, just the framelines are different, and to the best of my understanding, both lenses will focus correctly on both bodies.

I have not used the external 45mm finder, as I make do with the full field of the camera finder. I only miss the parallax correction offered for the 65 and longer lens... but then the external finder has only dotted lines as a guide to even more parallax anyway!

Hi Doug,
do you think possible to use a rf645 body with all 4 framelines?I have also a rf645 modified with 45/65/100 lenses,flash,pol,etc.....

 

[bwcolor]

I love the Bronica RF645, except for the shutter lag and the slow lenses. The truth is that faster lenses would defeat part of the charm of these cameras. You would have a major piece of glass sitting on a rangefinder (not the best focusing setup for a big piece of glass) and the depth of field of such a fast lens would be very limited. That said, I do put up with a fairly large lens on 35mm rangefinders.

When I load my M3 or magnified Ikon with a really fast lens and shoot with a film such as Ektar 100, or Acros 100 and carefully develop, I get rather nice images that come close to the image quality of a very fast film on my RF645. I'm not sure that this holds up in fact, especially in B&W, but the difference isn't huge. Now, fast film in my Mamiya 7 is better than any film/lens 35mm combination, except that I still prefer Ektar 100 to the fast C-41 color films.

I've come to the conclusion that fast lens, low light shooting is the strong suit of the most recent large sensor digital cameras. I bet the Leica M10 will easily surpass the RF645 and maybe the M7 when the lights go out. The Japanese big boys are pushing the ISO boundaries at breakneck speed.

 

[Cron]

Hi Paolo,
I use my RF645 with 100-frame together with the 4,5/135-lens;
no problems with focus and with some experience you can easy judge the correct framing

 

[semilog]

No, if I went with a larger-format RF it would be a 6x6 (love that square format) or a 6x9 (if it just had to be a rectangle). The jump from 35 to 645 is just not big enough. If pure IQ was the issue I'd go with a 5DII before 645.

 

[Doug]

Hi Doug,
do you think possible to use a rf645 body with all 4 framelines? I have also a rf645 modified with 45/65/100 lenses, flash, pol, etc...

Not 4 framelines, I think, as there are only 2 in the camera, for 65mm and either 100 or 135. It would be possible theoretically to make a frameline mask including both 100 & 135mm frames as well as 65mm. But then both the long lenses would bring to view both 100 & 135mm framelines at once.

It's a shame I think that there is no 45mm frameline in the viewfinder. It would have required slightly lower viewfinder magnification to include it, and I think there was a design decision to keep higher magnification to aid composing with the original 135mm long lens. Ironic that when that lens was recalled and they changed to 100mm for the long lens, they could have managed well with lower magnification accommodating both the 100mm and 45mm. It would have cost them to change at that time to lower mag, but it would have made for a better user experience. Too bad.

Also I bet an additional wider lens, maybe 30 or 35mm, was planned before camera production was halted.

 

[Doug]

I love the Bronica RF645, except for the shutter lag and the slow lenses...

There may be a perception that there is shutter lag, but I think there's none. The buzz-click you hear after pressing the shutter release is the electric re-cocking of the shutter after the exposure... not the sound of the exposure itself, which is virtually silent.

 

[Doug]

No, if I went with a larger-format RF it would be a 6x6 or a 6x9. The jump from 35 to 645 is just not big enough. If pure IQ was the issue I'd go with a 5DII before 645.

I think 645 is a worthwhile format... 24x36mm = 864 square mm in area. By comparison, 645 is 41.5x56mm = 2324 square mm, nearly 3x the area. And 6x7 is 56x70mm = 3920 square mm which is about 4.5x the area of 35mm full frame.

I personally prefer a rectangular format, so 6x6 is then equivalent to 6x4.5 anyway. 😛

 

[Gordon Moat]

I love the Bronica RF645, except for the shutter lag and the slow lenses......

Curious about your shutter lag issue, because mine does not have that problem. Did this happen as the camera got older? Or do you mean from one shot to the next, since the shutter recycle keeps the pace from frame to frame a bit slower than smaller cameras?

I currently have no trouble stopping action, whether it is facial expressions, cowboys roping cattle, moving airplanes, or anything transportation related. Granted the shutter release is not the 10 mSecs of a Leica M3, but it is faster than the 24mSec best of any of my Nikon SLRs.

 

[Gordon Moat]

Since my old Handspring Palm Pilot is still working, I ran the Bronica RF645 65mm through pCAM software at f4,0 and a close focus of 1m. This would give a mid torso upper body image, and not a headshot.

DoF = 77mm at f4,0 and 1m distance

Then I plugged the 100mm lens through pCAM software, with close focus of 1,2m and using f4,5 aperture. This would give a shoulders and head shot, much closer appearing than the 65mm.

DoF = 51mm at f4,5 and 1,2m distance

If the 65mm went to f2,8 or the 100mm went to f2,8, then the results would be as follows:

DoF = 54mm on the 65mm at theoretical f2,8 and 1,0m distance

DoF = 32mm on the 100mm at theoretical f2,8 and 1,2m distance

That's pretty shallow for many images. I think a bigger issue is that the Bronica RF645 is simply not a headshot only camera, unless you want to crop the shot. Cropping would still leave you a bigger piece of film than using a 35mm rangefinder, though some people never consider cropping.

Just to complete the comparison, a Contax 645 SLR with the 80mm f2,0 lens will close focus to 0,7m, though in practise it is a little tough to use under 1,0m distance from your subject. Anyway, that will give a tight head and neck shot of a subject.

DoF = 12mm with the 80mm f2,0 lens at 0,7m distance on the Contax 645 SLR

So if you want to do tight headshots, then get an SLR, or become comfortable with cropping on a rangefinder image. I think the bigger issue is not that the aperture does not open large enough, I think there is more of an issue that the RF645 will not allow focus closer than 1,0m distance. The 100mm lens for the RF645 would need to focus down to 0,85m to match the tight headshot of the Contax 80mm, and the 65mm would need to focus down to 0,5m. All good in theory, though even when you are working with trained talent any distance less than 1,0m is really not a comfortable working distance. This is when even longer lenses make a better difference.

Anyway, I rarely have ever done tight headshots, and I really have little interest in that sort of portrait work. I would rather show more of a person, and some context for their environment.

 

[bwcolor]

There may be a perception that there is shutter lag, but I think there's none. The buzz-click you hear after pressing the shutter release is the electric re-cocking of the shutter after the exposure... not the sound of the exposure itself, which is virtually silent.

OK, that does make sense. I think that my digital experience has me looking for shutter lag.

I never purchased a second lens for this camera (RF645) because I usually use longer telephotos for tighter portrait work and I kept an Etrsi for that. The Mamiya 7(II) isn't any better at head shots and I do have the telephoto for that camera (a very large and heavy lens by rangefinder standards).

 

[_lou_]

I have the RF645 too, and use 45, 65 and 100mm lenses.
I totally agree that getting faster glass would not be very useful, because of the shallow DoF.
I also confirm that there is no shutter lag, or if there is, it is not perceivable.

One of the limits of this camera is definitely in the rangefinder coupling with the 100mm at close focusing distances : the documentation says it well and recommends working at f/8 or f/11 when focusing the lens between 1.2m and 1.8m (where distance scale is no longer detailed on the lens).
All in all, to compensate for this, I tend to use faster film with this camera, shooting at 800ISO most of the time. It's only a one stop push, it does not affect the grain so much if development is made carefully.

This is not a camera for everything, but despite this, I carry mine around all the time (more than the top notch digital gear I also own).

 

[atlcruiser]

FWIIW:
I dropped 645 in favor of 6x7. I would be fine with 6x6 as well. 645 is great but I realised that it was a LOT of camera for a rather small negative. The mamiya 7 or 6 just cant be beat....

david