What do you think about Mamiya 645 AFD III ?

[karlori]

Greetings,

before I started threading into 35mm territory I made a pretty unguided and spontaneous/impulse purchase of a Hasselblad 500CM with 80 and 150 CF T* lenses ...
Up until now I have been very happy with it but i have always wanted something a bit more "ergonomic" i do love the waist level finder, but have also found the max 1/500 speeds have left me wanting for something a bit faster. Now fast forward to yesterday and you have me scratching my head...
A fellow photographer I became good friends with is getting rid of his Mamiya 645 AFD III which is mint and the 80 lens which is like new and an 150 in i would say 7/10 condition...
Now, I have an offer for my Hblad kit at around the same as the asking price for the mamiya kit.
Should I do it ? I really like the 6x6 and 6x4.5 formats but can't afford both ...
What to do ?

 

[sebastian toombs]

keep the hassy -- more real estate. better yet, get a mamiya 6 or 7

 

[nikon_sam]

Can you get a 645 back for the Hassy...???
I saw some on ebay...do they make one for your body...???

 

[hans voralberg]

Seems like you want faster speed and eye-level view, in that case get the Mamiya. If you can live with the 500 speed, get a prism for the Hassy.

 

[shadowfox]

The Mamiya AFD has a nice and big viewfinder.

The autofocus is only for the 80mm (between the two lenses you mentioned).
Using it feels like using a modern SLR, which it really is.

If you print in the darkroom, 6x4.5 negatives are a joy to deal with, I have made 11x14 prints that are gorgeous in the amount of details from those.

I'm actually thinking of selling my Hasselblad because I find myself using the Ricoh TLR for doing 6x6 work.

 

[Jamie123]

If he's a good friend, ask him if can borrow the camera for a few days. Try it out and see if it's right for you.

 

[mawz]

The Mamiya AFD has a nice and big viewfinder.

The autofocus is only for the 80mm (between the two lenses you mentioned).
Using it feels like using a modern SLR, which it really is.

If you print in the darkroom, 6x4.5 negatives are a joy to deal with, I have made 11x14 prints that are gorgeous in the amount of details from those.

I'm actually thinking of selling my Hasselblad because I find myself using the Ricoh TLR for doing 6x6 work.

The 150 is also available as an AF lens, there's an AF 150/3.5 and an AF 150/2.8 D in the 645AF system.

 

[sevo]

The 150 is also available as an AF lens, there's an AF 150/3.5 and an AF 150/2.8 D in the 645AF system.

There are/were something like twenty lenses in the 645AF system if we count in the superseded ones. They range IIRC from 35 to maybe 400mm and include two zooms. Some half dozen currently are at the latest AF-D level, another handful had been optically upgraded over the manual focus series, the rest are optically the same as late series manual focus M645 lenses, with AF mechanics added.

 

[mawz]

There are/were something like twenty lenses in the 645AF system if we count in the superseded ones. They range IIRC from 35 to maybe 400mm and include two zooms. Some half dozen currently are at the latest AF-D level, another handful had been optically upgraded over the manual focus series, the rest are optically the same as late series manual focus M645 lenses, with AF mechanics added.

The 645 AF lenses range from 28mm to 300mm (all the 500's are in the older MF series, I'm not aware of any 400mm lens in either the AF or MF system) with 9 D series lenses. There are 3 zooms in the system. All the non-D lenses which have MF equivalents are the same optical design as the MF version with the exception of the 210/4 ULD which was upgraded with ULD elements. The only D series lens with optics based on the MF system is the 80/2.8 non-LS (which is also optically identical to the non-D AF version). Unfortunately Mamiya never released its superb APO lenses in AF versions (the 200/2.8, 300/2.8 and 500/4.5)

Interestingly the 3 LS lenses are rebadged Schneider designs from PhaseOne, a fourth (150 LS) is due in the spring. These are the only non-Mamiya designs in the system.

 

[Abbie]

I would go for it, since you are not completely satisfied with what you have. Maybe you will like the other one better, you won't really know until you try it. I say do it, what do you have to lose?

 

[filmfan]

Do it. I got sick of the WLF on my Rolleiflex as well as plan on switching to Mamiya 645.