Digital mamiya 7II

[larkis]

Come on guys, what's the hold up with that ?  With the whole mirrorless craze going on in the small sensor world and the benefits it provides, what's up with a mirrorless medium format camera ? Is it just the lack of life view that is the issue ? You know you want it...

[dizzyg44]

Heck yeah!  I'd give up my DMF kit and my X100 for this!

[design_freak]

Come on guys, what's the hold up with that ?  With the whole mirrorless craze going on in the small sensor world and the benefits it provides, what's up with a mirrorless medium format camera ? Is it just the lack of life view that is the issue ? You know you want it...

One problem: money     20 milion Euro ...
Another :
Specialists to be assigned to this project. (There are a limited number). Time - because the camera must be designed from the beginning. Another problem is the fear that this investment will have a chance to turn. And as each product is produced to earn.

[ndevlin]

Give up my MF slr? Heck, I'd give up a kidney! But it ain't gonna happen.  The extreme angle-of-incidence problem is probably even more acute with the Mamiyas than with Leica (given the light has so much further to travel to the corners of the sensor, and development costs would be in the tens of millions. Unless Bill Gates develops a sudden MF RF fetish, we'll have to be satisfied with whatever Solms gives us. 

- N.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Mamiya 67 has an excellent reputation for lenses. But, can you achieve the needed precision of focus without live view?

An 6x7 sensor would be extremely expensive.  Full frame 645 sensor are very, very expensive. So what about full frame 67?! Camera vendors cannot build one camera for one freak who is willing to spend 100 grand on a single item but need thousand freaks willing to spend 40 grands. Do you think those thousand freaks are around?!

Best regards
Erik

Give up my MF slr? Heck, I'd give up a kidney! But it ain't gonna happen.  The extreme angle-of-incidence problem is probably even more acute with the Mamiyas than with Leica (given the light has so much further to travel to the corners of the sensor, and development costs would be in the tens of millions. Unless Bill Gates develops a sudden MF RF fetish, we'll have to be satisfied with whatever Solms gives us. 

- N.

[design_freak]

Hi,

Mamiya 67 has an excellent reputation for lenses. But, can you achieve the needed precision of focus without live view?

An 6x7 sensor would be extremely expensive.  Full frame 645 sensor are very, very expensive. So what about full frame 67?! Camera vendors cannot build one camera for one freak who is willing to spend 100 grand on a single item but need thousand freaks willing to spend 40 grands. Do you think those thousand freaks are around?!

Best regards
Erik

Best to call them freaks 

[dizzyg44]

This is all true, but sometimes we just want to throw practicality and reason aside to day dream

[mmurph]

The Mamiya 7II is the one camera - out of the 30 or so that I have owned - that I really, really miss!  

Seems like that is true for many?

I stilll look at them every time they are for sale, even though I gave mine up for digital around the Canon 20D era. I just couldn't justify the cost of $1 per frame for pro color fim & development, plus bracketing, the $2,000 scanner, the workflow, etc.

But I do miss that Mamiya so ... Not completely sure why? Just so simple and elegant and precise, with such great image quality.  

My second favorite camera was the Canon 1DsII.  3rd was probably the Pentax 645N?  I still have 4, 4x5 cameras, a Mamiya 645, a Bronica ETRSi, and a Canon film something something, but they never get used ...

Cheers!
Michael

[lowep]

So if there is no digital Mamiya 7 what is the closest digital fix for those morbid souls among us who have this weird necrophilic craving:

strike 1: digital rangefinder ie M8 (small sensor) M9 (high price) X100 (cute toy)?

strike 2: Canikon/Sony FF DSLRs that are not rangefinders and do not (yet?) have IQ equivalent of 6x7 film

strike 3:  

[Anders_HK]

Closest should be this one... fits most current backs...

http://www.alpa.ch/en/products/cameras/camera-bodies/alpa-12-tc.html

[Doug Peterson]

Closest should be this one... fits most current backs...

http://www.alpa.ch/en/products/cameras/camera-bodies/alpa-12-tc.html

Or the nearly identical and less expensive Cambo Compact which also allows tilt on wide angle lenses should one want to also use the body for landscape work.

Doug Peterson (e-mail Me)
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[TimG]

Why not just shoot a 7II and scan the film?  Reconditioned Tangos can be had for well under $7K.  Or go for the gusto and order a brand new Aztek for $40K.

[ndevlin]

So if there is no digital Mamiya 7 what is the closest digital fix for those morbid souls among us who have this weird necrophilic craving:

strike 1: digital rangefinder ie M8 (small sensor) M9 (high price) X100 (cute toy)?

strike 2: Canikon/Sony FF DSLRs that are not rangefinders and do not (yet?) have IQ equivalent of 6x7 film

strike 3:  

I've been looking/waiting for six or seven years and still haven't found it....I believe John Cleese and co. spent some time looking for it in the early 1970s as well  

- N.

ps. and Tim, scanning film is the colonoscopy of the photographic world.  If someone told me I could keep shooting but had to scan film as part of my workflow, or quit photography, I'd take up golf.

[Pesto]

1+ with the possible exception of replacing golf with tiddlywinks.

[Rob C]

There's a solution, depending on just exactly why the desire for the 6x7.

If it's because of the relative pleasure of the actual shooting, that huge blow-ups are not going to be required as normal practice, then just go ahead and use the camera and shoot to the greater happiness of your soul. You can have it both ways.

From 6x7 transparencies it's relatively easy to make direct camera copies with your ordinary digital machine; these, if meant for web usage, can look perfectly fine for purpose. I have a very few 6x6 and 6x7 transparencies left from my working days, and it dawned on me that I could copy them on the lightbox, which I did, and I now have a couple on my website instead of just within a tin filing cabinet. Should they ever require a larger or possibly paper conversion, then they can be scanned at that time. Until then, I have the pleasure of displaying them as I see fit.

In the end, how many shots we take are really worth spending time and money printing out on paper? I speak from an amateur usage point of view, of course, and the pro doesn't face these quandries: he either can afford to buy or he can not, whim has little to do with it.

Rob C

[TimG]

scanning film is the colonoscopy of the photographic world.  If someone told me I could keep shooting but had to scan film as part of my workflow, or quit photography, I'd take up golf.

I guess it all depends on how you look at it.  Took me all of 18 months to settle into a scanning workflow which works for me.  This included calibrating the scanner, tests to determine ideal scan settings, configuring my system for batch scanning (so I don't have to spend my life behind the computer), and developing a cataloging system.  It's a small price to pay for the satisfaction of being able to continue using my favorite cameras and lenses.

Enjoy the links!

[mmurph]

Why not just shoot a 7II and scan the film?

Cost!  I was spending AT LEAST $5,000 a year for film & processing, just for my personal projects, for the Mamiya 7II.  Plus the time for 2 trips to the lab, cutting, digital contact sheets (negative film for me), storing, cost of film scanner and time for scanning, cost of storage  ...

When I bought my Canon 1DsII, the breakeven - for the total cost of an $8,000 camera - was about 8 months!  My actual cost for the 1DsII, for the 2 years I used it before I sold it was $1,500 per year.  Or the equivalent of about 3 months of film cost only, for film that was not billed to clients. The next 9 months of personal use each year were "free."  

(FWIW, I have a degree in photography, but I also have an MBA. There are some detailed spreadsheets back there somewhere -- was that around 2005?)

(I calculated my 6x7 film cost at the time at $1 per frame, 35mm at .33, for pro color film and developing.  I averaged approximately 35,000 images per year with the 1DsII and later cameras.  So if I actually had to pay for all the frames I did with digital - knowing that I shot more freely with digital than with film - that would have been $35,000 per year for 6x7, or about $11,000 for 35mm, for film & processing only.)

I had already gone to a fully digital scan & print process flow in 1998, so the computer costs were the same for digital or film.

I kept my two Mamiya 7II's for a full year after going digital, I just couldn't bear to sell them!  I finally took them out after a year and went out to shoot.  How strange!  I had to load a different film just to change the ISO? I couldn't check exposure or get feedback on sharpness, composition, etc? I had to wait a few days to review the images?  It really was a wierd experience after being fully digital for a year!

So, yes, a lot of nostalgia on my part. But my real world choices were 100%+ to keep the Canon 1DsII at the time, and to never look back.  For prints up to 18x27 I was completely satisfied, with no preference for one system over the other, which was sufficient for 99% of my needs. For anything requiring more detail I turned to 4x5 film.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Scanning is possible but neither cheap or especially efficient. I have about the cheapest dedicated MF film scanner around, and it cost me about 3k, same as my Sony Alpha 900. I need something like 15 minutes to scan an image, and at least scanned Velvia doesn't match my Sony Alpha 900 in most respects. Negative film may be a different issue. I see some advantage with 6000 PPI drum scans on Velvia and more so with Ektar 100. But I was shooting with a Pentax 67, other cameras may give better results.

Here is the Velvia test: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/16-pentax67velvia-vs-sony-alpha-900
And the Ektar test is here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/59-sony-alpha-900-vs-67-analogue-round-2

The Ektar test is somewhat hampered by me loosing two rolls of film in development, that is also a reality of living with film.

I'm not particularly against film, but it is not my experience that 67 film has superior image quality to modern DSLRs.

Regarding the Mamyia 7, it is a very good camera with excellent lenses, but I'd think that few buyers could afford a digital version costing around 50 kUSD, and it would probably not come cheaper.

I actually have experience with film. Some of my film based images are here: http://echophoto.smugmug.com/Travel/Sextener-Dolomiten/

Best regards
Erik

Cost!  I was spending AT LEAST $5,000 a year for film & processing, just for my personal projects, for the Mamiya 7II.  Plus the time for 2 trips to the lab, cutting, digital contact sheets (negative film for me), storing, cost of film scanner and time for scanning, cost of storage  ...

When I bought my Canon 1DsII, the breakeven - for the total cost of an $8,000 camera - was about 8 months!  My actual cost for the 1DsII, for the 2 years I used it before I sold it was $1,500 per year.  Or the equivalent of about 3 months of film cost only, for film that was not billed to clients. The next 9 months of personal use each year were "free."  

(FWIW, I have a degree in photography, but I also have an MBA. There are some detailed spreadsheets back there somewhere -- was that around 2005?)

(I calculated my 6x7 film cost at the time at $1 per frame, 35mm at .33, for pro color film and developing.  I averaged approximately 35,000 images per year with the 1DsII and later cameras.  So if I actually had to pay for all the frames I did with digital - knowing that I shot more freely with digital than with film - that would have been $35,000 per year for 6x7, or about $11,000 for 35mm, for film & processing only.)

I had already gone to a fully digital scan & print process flow in 1998, so the computer costs were the same for digital or film.

I kept my two Mamiya 7II's for a full year after going digital, I just couldn't bear to sell them!  I finally took them out after a year and went out to shoot.  How strange!  I had to load a different film just to change the ISO? I couldn't check exposure or get feedback on sharpness, composition, etc? I had to wait a few days to review the images?  It really was a wierd experience after being fully digital for a year!

So, yes, a lot of nostalgia on my part. But my real world choices were 100%+ to keep the Canon 1DsII at the time, and to never look back.  For prints up to 18x27 I was completely satisfied, with no preference for one system over the other, which was sufficient for 99% of my needs. For anything requiring more detail I turned to 4x5 film.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Just my experience regarding cost:

I have a Pentax 67 with Fisheye, 45, 90, 165 and 300 mm lens plus a 1.4 extender. I bought the stuff brand new in the nineties for perhaps 3-4 kUSD.

After that I bought a projector for 6x7 slides costing around 3kUSD and two scanner capable of handling 120 film, the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi, which was the first affordable film scanner for MF and later the Dimage Scan Multi Pro which has higher resolution. I was beta tester for Vuescan on the Multi Pro, the present version of Vuescan is based on my sample. That was an intense experience! The two scanners set me back 3k USD each. So my total investment in MF was around 12 kUSD.

Fil cost here in Sweden is about 10$ per 120 roll and development cost is similar. Add to that shipping back and forth. I was using slide film, projected. A ten pack of 67 slide mounts from GP was about 20$. Obviously not all slides were mounted.

My recent camera is the Sony Alpha 900, I bought it with two lenses for about 5kUSD, the two lenses were "Zeiss" 24-70/2.8 and Sigma 12-24, and later I added a Sony 70-300/4.5-5.6G lens for another 1kUSD. I happened to have a few old Minolta lenses in the wardrobe. So digital equipment was 6kUSD.

In my experience my 6 kUSD digital equipment outperforms my 12 kUSD film equipment regarding:


- Tonal range and noise
- Color
- Convenience !!!!
- Confirmation

Regarding sharpness and resolution I would say that digital mostly wins, but I may have seen exceptions.

So I don't really see that film is cheap, compared to digital. For low volume shooting, and if you enjoy sitting in front of the computer and scanning film, it can be very economical if you buy bargain equipment, have good supply of film and convenient access to a pro lab still developing film.

Best regards
Erik

Cost!  I was spending AT LEAST $5,000 a year for film & processing, just for my personal projects, for the Mamiya 7II.  Plus the time for 2 trips to the lab, cutting, digital contact sheets (negative film for me), storing, cost of film scanner and time for scanning, cost of storage  ...

When I bought my Canon 1DsII, the breakeven - for the total cost of an $8,000 camera - was about 8 months!  My actual cost for the 1DsII, for the 2 years I used it before I sold it was $1,500 per year.  Or the equivalent of about 3 months of film cost only, for film that was not billed to clients. The next 9 months of personal use each year were "free."  

(FWIW, I have a degree in photography, but I also have an MBA. There are some detailed spreadsheets back there somewhere -- was that around 2005?)

(I calculated my 6x7 film cost at the time at $1 per frame, 35mm at .33, for pro color film and developing.  I averaged approximately 35,000 images per year with the 1DsII and later cameras.  So if I actually had to pay for all the frames I did with digital - knowing that I shot more freely with digital than with film - that would have been $35,000 per year for 6x7, or about $11,000 for 35mm, for film & processing only.)

I had already gone to a fully digital scan & print process flow in 1998, so the computer costs were the same for digital or film.

I kept my two Mamiya 7II's for a full year after going digital, I just couldn't bear to sell them!  I finally took them out after a year and went out to shoot.  How strange!  I had to load a different film just to change the ISO? I couldn't check exposure or get feedback on sharpness, composition, etc? I had to wait a few days to review the images?  It really was a wierd experience after being fully digital for a year!

So, yes, a lot of nostalgia on my part. But my real world choices were 100%+ to keep the Canon 1DsII at the time, and to never look back.  For prints up to 18x27 I was completely satisfied, with no preference for one system over the other, which was sufficient for 99% of my needs. For anything requiring more detail I turned to 4x5 film.

[mmurph]

the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi, which was the first affordable film scanner for MF and later

Yeah, that was my first medium format scanner too!

I gave up MF when it was time to upgrade to a better scanner and spend another $3K, after maybe 3 years using that one?  Just the scanners cost me so much more than the digital cameras did net (purchase price - selling price.)

I agree with the rest of your post 100%.  Exactly the same experience.

We sure had a few years of film/digital wars around that time! 

I shot film for 20 years. Started out as a hard core, fine arts, black & white photog around 1980.  I barely shot color at all until 1996 or so. 

I am very happy to have the tools we do now, especially the large fortmat printers!  With my own home-brewed black&white inks, or my dye inks I use for proofing, I can crank out 24x36 inch prints for less than $1 US.  Amazing!  Nothing like seeing images big, on paper.   

Cheers!
Michael