Subrata - your pockets are deeper than mine! I wish I could have gone that route
My two favorite lenses are the Contax C/Y 28/2 and 100/2. With a Contax 645AF I could have replicated those lenses pretty easily with Contax's 645AF lens line-up. With the Mamiya I can use Zeiss lenses via an adapter and pretty match the 645AF options I'd be interested in. Ultimately I went with Mamiya because there's a lot momentum on the Mamiya side - new lenses, new body, partnership with Phase, etc. The Contax lens platform is what it is, there is nothing new to come. The Contax platform is viable today, but what about in 2 or 3 years when I need to sell the P25 to fund the next back upgrade? That part worried me. What if Contax isn't popular then?
Right now my only Mamiya lens is the 80mm F2.8 AF. For the Canon 1Ds2 I've run the gamut of Leica lenses, Contax lenses and even having the Contax N lenses converted to Canon EF mounts. All of these has been an effort to overcome the AA filter. The german lenses also have other benefits such as better contrast and bokeh. You could easily say I'm a bit biased in terms of lenses. The 80mm F2.8 AF sells used on Ebay for ~$250. I was joking with my wife that it's ironic after spending all the money on the P25 and AFD II that i'm using a $250 lens. She failed to see the humor
Yesterday the rain stopped and the sun came out, this was my first chance to test the P25 outdoors - with the 80mm F2.8 AF. That little lens is amazingly sharp. Contrast is very good and colors are nice. Supposedly the 80mm is one of Mamiya's lesser primes. I will be adding the 35/3.5 AF and 150/3.5 AF. If those lenses are as good or as better, I don't know if I'll bother with Hassy+adapter lenses.
Here are 18 images - all full size, no sharpening. These did have their levels tweaked in CS3 and I was just seeing how far I could push the files. The skies weren't blown, but I pushed them to white in CS3 (in some cases) because I was playing with levels. Likewise, they are over-saturated because I wanted to see how far they could go before clipping. I don't use C1 much and I goofed on white balance. I had the WB shifted too far to magenta by ~5 clicks. There's a slight purple cast - that's my fault. But as for sharpness and detail, these are good examples -
P25 with Mamiya 80mm F2.8 AFAll the images were handheld and I was seeing how slow of a shutter speed was possible before mirror slap/vibration was an issue. Shooting 1/80 was fine. Anything below 1/40th is pushing it. Metering was pretty good, most of the image were shot with -1/3 or -2/3 EC. I think the 1Ds2 meters better, but the AFD II isn't bad.
One thing I do NOT like about the AFD II is the AF/MF switch. It's at the front of body, the switch is small, it doesn't move easily - so switching between AF/MF while looking through the viewfinder can be awkward. The switch tends to skip over single AF mode and go into continuous AF mode. I shot all the images with MF and learned that I need to pay more attention to focus! Manual focusing is very easy with the AFD II screens vs Canon's, but the DOF is thinner than I expected so OOF'd about 20% of the images. I hope the AFD III brings multipoint AF ---- please, please, please!
The AEL lock button is on the upper right hand corner of the body, and that tends to be where my thumb falls while walking with camera. On several occasions I must have bumped the button because the metering was completely off. In the custom functions I swapped the focus lock and AEL lock button, so in the future that shouldn't be an issue anymore.
Alot of people ding the AFD II body for build quality and I don't understand that. Coming from Canon's 1-series bodies, the AFD II reminds me of Canon 1-series in terms of heft and finish. The buttons are a bit tiny, so if I were Michael I would complain about them because shooting with gloves would be difficult. Other than that, materials, fit & finish and overall operation isn't much different than a Canon body.
The Mamiya AFD II uses a Metz SCA 3952 module for the Metz flashes. I don't have one yet, but I'm not happy about the flash choices. I only use the flash for outdoor fill in daylight and very rarely for indoor use. The Metz's flashes are big and heavy, I'd prefer something much smaller. The Canon 430EX was fine on the 1Ds2 - still a bit big (for me), but it had bounce and ETTL-II so it won out. I'll figure out a flash solution for the AFD II in a month or two; it's not a priority right now.
I haven't used or even held a Contax 645AF, so maybe my opinion would change. But right now I have no regrets or doubts about the Mamiya AFD II. If needed some Zeiss lenses can be used via an adapter, but I'm not feeling the need just yet. That'll probably change because I'm a bit of a lens snob --- I really want a Hass 110/2 Planar "just because". Anyway, I give the AFD II a thumbs up.
BTW - the P25 rattled off 114 images on a fully charged 2500 Mah battery. Afterwards the battery showed 75% remaining. Better than I expected. There's not much point in chimping on the P-series LCDs - I bet Sputnik had a better screen. The screen is fine for checking histo's, but that's about it. The image review is pretty quick - reminds me of the original 1Ds. I foresee buying a cheap MacBook for our next vacation. There's no way I'd use the LCD screen to pick keepers.
