You 2? (Mamiya 6 & 7)

[Turtle]

The rangefinder is a rather short base to accurately focus faster lenses. Mamiya dropped the ball on this camera, I think. They cheaped out on the body by putting in a short base RF, then charged a fortune for it. For the prices these get new, you can get a Hasselblad....same for used which are also expensive.

You can get a new 7II body with 80mm for $1750 from most grey importers, which is nothing like Hassy prices. Used the bodies are about $600-700 in great condition. The 50mm is about $1300 which is half the price of the equivalent Hassy lens.

Compactness and price are all considerations, but lets not forget that an 80mm lens at f4 has the same shallow DOF as a 40mm at f2...... Physical speed is not there in terms of available shutter speed, but the shallow DOF is very possible, although there are of course 75 f2s/2.5s and 90 f2/2.8s for 35mm with even shallower DOF..

The camera is not designed to be a portrait tool but a portable big neg maker for travel/landscape use. Rangefinders are expensive to make and we get into the diminishing returns area when it comes to very long base length super accurate and well made rangefinders and end up having to pay for them. I think Mamiya got their research right in that this was always going to sell in the main to travel/landscape/environmental portrait/street shooters. The Mamiya 7 is arguably not an 'only camera' camera, but one there to fulfill a specific role and that it does rather well (although it would have been better if built like a RF645 and with the same exposure comp/ergonomics).

I agree the original prices were insane, but shop about and they are pretty good now. Altho popflash does not advertise them any more I think they will still source them at good prices if you ask.

A 110/120mm f4 lens would also have been handy.

I don't find it too badly made in practice, altho I have yet to see if rangefinder drift affects me!

 

[katgut@earthlink.net]

I have the Mamiya 6. I usually use T-Max 400, which shows such low grain that the faster lenses just aren't necessary. The lenses would have humongous anyway at 2.8. And more expensive. I just leave my 50mm on f16 and shoot away.

 

[TJV]

My M7ii has been in a major car crash and smashed against a windscreen and recently dropped on a concrete floor from 1.5m straight on the lens. Both times I've sent the camera for a check up and both times they couldn't fault it. No rangefinder misalignment, no nothing. Before sending the first time I did some tests and thought it might be off but on further checking it was perfect and the lab was at fault combined with my sloppy focusing.
In short, I reckon the M7ii is built very well. The images it makes are brilliantly sharp and I've never wanted faster lenses. f4 is plenty fast for me, especially since I enjoy fill and bounce flash with the big 6x7 negs and the extra latitude they offer.

 

[Tegla]

For general use i have Mamiya 6MF with 75 & 50 lens.
If i want closer focus and shallower DOF i just grab Mamiya RB67.

 

[snausages]

Despite my longing for one faster lens for the outfit, it is pretty remarkable how successfully you can shoot this camera hand-held at slow shutter speeds. I just printed a shot taken at 1/15th, hand-held while standing on a chair, in a room lit only by indirect morning light, on 8x10 paper and it's one of my favorite enlargements I've ever had made.

 

[morback]

Despite my longing for one faster lens for the outfit, it is pretty remarkable how successfully you can shoot this camera hand-held at slow shutter speeds. I just printed a shot taken at 1/15th, hand-held while standing on a chair, in a room lit only by indirect morning light, on 8x10 paper and it's one of my favorite enlargements I've ever had made.

I had and loved an M6. I've never had issues with the quality of any of the parts of the Mamiya, but I am not a commercial photographer shooting XXX numbers of rolls an hour. I heard of a wedding photographer trashing this camera because he stripped one during a wedding shoot.

F4 never bothered me, because as you have discovered, it hand-holds perfectly, and the tiny almost inaudible leaf shutter is just a delight. And since it's medium format, you can go for faster film with still excellent results.

I find it easy in photography to be wanting more. Especially gear-wise. But if you're not finding yourself limited in an unacceptable manner, I would leave the what-ifs and why-nots out of your mind and just enjoy this awesome tool.

I hope it helps. I know it's not a direct answer to your question, but it would sadden me if this prevent you from enjoying and appreciating your Mamiya.

 

[snausages]

Desiring a faster lens hasn't prevented me from enjoying the Mamiya. Not at all. I realize I'm being greedy, wanting all my interests fulfilled in one package, but...

a) as I've stated a couple times on this thread, I really do appreciate and stand in awe of this camera - it's because I like it so much that I want it to rise up and deliver even more.

b) since I really am content with what this camera does do, I'm just genuinely curious about the science and the technical limitations of building a faster leaf shutter lens. for instance, precisely how much larger would a f2.8 lens have been
if you'd allowed for something like 20% drop off in sharpness from the 80 f4?

As Atom said earlier, maybe I should just track down someone at Mamiya...

 

[Abbazz]

So far I love my recently acquired Mamiya 7.

But it pains me that the fastest lens option for the camera is f4.

And I don't get why Mamiya left it this way.

My guess is that it's a limitation due to the rangefinder short base (as suggested by others). There are F/2.8 and even F/1.9 lenses available for MF reflex cameras (either TLRs or SLRs) but there are very few MF rangefinders equipped with F/2.8 lenses and none with faster lenses.

If you want to do street shooting in available light situations, just load some Fuji Pro 800z in 220 format in your Mamiya 7 and you'll get 20 gorgeous exposures per roll with almost no grain. As the Mamiya 7 is easily handholdable at 1/15sec., shooting 800 ISO film should allow you to shoot in quite dark places. Here are some pictures taken with Fuji Pro 800z and converted to black and white in Photoshop. They were taken at F/3.5 in a poorly lit room with my Fuji G690 rangefinder's 100mm lens equipped with an additional "Auto-Up" diopter:

Cheers!

Abbazz

 

[snausages]

I took a walk with the M7 + 43mm at night with 400 film. Kinda boring shots, but encouraging to me in terms of sharpness at slow shutter speeds...

1/8:

1/4:

 

[bensyverson]

With it's ridiculously quiet, gentle leaf shutters and its grace in your hands, the camera seems so naturally suited for low, available light photography and yet...there is no lens to fully exploit these fundamental advantages.

The Mamiya 7 was designed for wedding photographers... The reason why they made it so light and gave it a leaf shutter was because wedding photographers had to carry it all day, and it had to deliver sharp results handheld.

They couldn't make the lenses 2.8 for many reasons. Think about trying to get both the bride and groom's eyes in focus at f/2.8 in 6x7 (with a rangefinder!). The extra weight (probably 1-2 extra pounds) certainly wouldn't have helped.

As has been mentioned, if what you want is speed, the Mamiya 645 has an f/1.9 lens, and Pentax has 75mm f/2.8 and 90mm f/2.8 leaf shutter lenses for the 645 and 67 system respectively. Those Pentax leaf shutter lenses seem a little funky to use, because you have to set the shutter speed on the lens, and use 1/8 on the body. They're really made for studio strobe use, not handholding.

 

[sebastian toombs]

id rather be able to focus in a bit closer than to have the extra stop... snausages, you are inspiring me to try something similar.