Mostly pink flowers

[Gary R. Smith]

A couple of weeks ago I took the Mamiya 645 for a walk around the neighborhood loaded with a roll of Kodak Gold 200. I was mostly interested in how the color would render. Of course, these posted images have been cropped and down sized to 1800 pixels wide (from 4824). The original jpg's were 48MB each. I'm happy with the results and color however the camera is very heavy. The Perkeo 2 on the other hand is light enough to hand-hold and it fits into my jeans pocket AND the negatives are larger (600mm x 600mm v. 600mm x 450mm on the Mamiya).

 

[Gary R. Smith]

The depth-of-field is very narrow. Seems like I was discussing the focus on the top one w/Brian in another thread. That was shot at 1/30th sec. shutter @ f/5.6. I'd like to think that the tulip all the way on the right (of the image) is actually in focus. Also the strand of pink hearts in the middle of the bottom shot seem to be in "ok" focus as are the leaves? Maybe shooting the 80mm lens on the Mamiya wants something like f/8?

 

[Wes Hall]

The depth-of-field is very narrow. Seems like I was discussing the focus on the top one w/Brian in another thread. That was shot at 1/30th sec. shutter @ f/5.6. I'd like to think that the tulip all the way on the right (of the image) is actually in focus. Also the strand of pink hearts in the middle of the bottom shot seem to be in "ok" focus as are the leaves? Maybe shooting the 80mm lens on the Mamiya wants something like f/8?

I'd concur from the image Gary it's got focus, and these have a rich colour and nice bokeh, particularly the cherry blossom.

As it's medium format, that 5.6 acts more shallow than it would on a 35mm camera- which is easy to forget- so the f.8 would be closer the the effect you may have wanted from 5.6 (if that helps ).

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Thanks Wes,
I had a long, arduous trail to the Mamiya. You can read about that here. In any case I eventually got a new body to go with the lens I ended up with and added a waist-level finder (which was used on these shots). I probably need more magnification that the fold-out glass provides as none of these were really focused very well.

 

[Tony Warren]

I had the 645 Super which was a little lighter than the original model you have Gary. And I agree with Wes that dof is quite reduced when moving up from 35mm to medium format. Even so these are pleasant renderings of the colour and form of the flowers, particularly the tulips.
I had a prism finder with mine which was quite a boon when I wanted to shoot portrait. And Mamiya did a chimney finder with the C series but not sure if they did one for the 645s. That would certainly let you hit precise focus but less easy in portrait like the waist level of course. Mamiya lenses were pretty good, and I was happiest with their 6x6 TLRs which was my only camera for years.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

In my first try, I ended up with several of the prism finders - trying to get a clean one. I did in fact get one with this body as well but I thought the WLF would be easier to deal with on a tripod.