Thanks again for this discussion.
To refer to the DoF comment - you may well be right that 35mm and ultra-wide aperture lenses offer thinner DoF, but there's just something about the MF shots I'm seeing. I'll go back to Li Zhensheng's book, he shot the Cultural Revolution using a Leica M3( presumably with a 35mm lens - his shots look wide) and a Rolleiflex. All of the shots in the book are published uncropped with the frame-lines intact, so it's easy to verify which shots came from which camera. However you don't need to - the Rolleiflex shots just stand out, even amongst the Leica ones. Whether this is down to the film used, the lens, the format or something else, I'm just really taken by his Rolleiflex shots. There's one here for you to have a look at:
and a book review here:
http://weblogs.larazon.com.ar/fototeca/arc...n-cultural.htmlwith more shots. The differences are even more perceptible with the book in your hands.
This isn't something I've only seen from Li's book, it's something that I've seen time and time again and it's something that I miss from my attempts with 35mm
film and
digital. Paratom may have it right when he says it's something that's hard to measure - just going up a sensor size seems to increase the quality. I've noticed that from digicams to bridge cams to APS-C to 35mm DSLRs and I'm now being allured by it in MF! Eric's comments make sense too.
As to the choice, Mamiya looks more and more tempting - I like the way the system is still living with the phase1 partnership.
Could I ask for a very quick summary of the differences between the 3 AF-D bodies and the rough price I should pay for each with a 120 film back? And does anyone have any experience with the 55mm f2.8 I mentioned earlier? Any other reccomendations?