Mamiya 645 lenses on the Sony

Yes, the 80/1.9 is quite amazing... better 1/2 stop closed though. Right there the with Mino 85. The 55/2.8 is good for tilt/shift too, but not necessarily anything better than Mino 50/1.4 at 2.8. Astonishingly, the 150/2.8 APO is every bit as notable as the Mino 200/2.8 APO. I was very surprised to see that... and it works for T/S adapter too. Well made lenses that have the same styling as Minolta second generation MD... with the Yellow and White lettering, instead of Green and White. Actually feel as though they are part of the same system. I've not been too impressed with the Mammy wides though. But I've heard others rave about them. Could be some wild sample variations. I stick with the N's.

The OOFA is very mature on the 80 and 150. Nice shots by the way.

Oh and BTW... the 80/1.9, being 67mm filter ring, works perfectly with Sunpack DX12R ring flash. Much better than the Minolta 85. Although the Minolta can fit, the Mammy focus ring is way better to work a ringflash with.

Edited by Photosopher - 03 March 2013 at 20:18

Mamiya made some superb lenses. Their apos were especially good.

Can you mount the RB lenses on the sony???

P.S. For me the two factors that make this effort really worthwhile are:
+ the high quality/reasonable price of the Mamiya RB67/RZ67 APO lenses;
+ focus peaking on the A77 and its relatives.

All the best,
Terry

Edited by terryg - 05 March 2013 at 09:42

Hi,
Not FF, but here are two sample pics I took handheld with the A77 and Mamiya 645 150mm f2.8 A at a local church Christmas Carols event.

This was a twilight event, so the lighting in the first one was a mixture of the twilight and floodlights from the building.

The second pic was nearly all from the floodlights.

No flash used in either.
Both photos are slightly cropped and lightly processed in Lightroom from Raw.

In these conditions this is NOT a sharpness test for the lens,
however I thought the lens' rendering appealing, the skin tonings good and realistic and the out of focus areas very smooth.

I used this lens for nearly the whole event and enjoyed the results.


#1 Mamiya 645 150mm f2.8 A on A77 at 400ISO f4 1/80 sec


#2 Mamiya 645 150mm f2.8 A on A77 at 2000ISO f2.8 1/100 sec


All the best,
Terry

Edited by terryg - 06 March 2013 at 03:22

keh.com in the US has a Mamiya 645 150mm f2.8 A in "EX" condition at a reasonable price at the moment!

Deepcore wrote: Was curious about thoughts about Mamiya "C" vs. "N" lenses. The "N" 150s I've seen are 3.5 and the "C" 150s I've seen are 2.8. Web browsing revealed N lenses supposedly have better coatings but are plastic. Since its on the Internet it must be true right?

Hi,

Mamiya sometimes indulged in a bit of alphabet soup.

I don't claim to be a Mamiya 645 expert but will give you a summary of my understanding of things.

Talking about the Mamiya 645 manual-focus lenses,
which are the ones easily adaptable to Sony Alpha
with the Fotodiox Pro adapter or equivalent adapter:

+ 645 N's are newer than 645 C's;

+ N's are reported to have better coatings for more contrast;
Most people prefer N's for the better coatings;
some people may prefer the lower contrast of C's for portrait work etc;

+ For some focal lengths, especially at the wide angle end,
the N's are reported to have a revised/better optical formulation than the C's.
The extent of these changes is debated.

+ N's will often still have a C on them as well,
for example markings such as "MAMIYA-SEKOR C N"

+ N's are still mainly glass and metal and very solid ,although they do usually have some plastic for aperture ring and focus ring cover.
N's are definitely not "plastic" overall.

+ Some of the relatively newer lenses do not have either N or C on them,
for example my 150mm f2.8 is marked "Mamiya A"
The A indicates the use of special glass such as anomalous dispersion glass and maybe that the lens is Apo-ish.

+ My personal 2 cents worth is that I have N's except where I have bought/want A's or APO's.
In the case of the 300mm f5.6 I bought the best-rated version, which is labelled "C ULD N".

+ On your specific question, AFAIK in the Mamiya 645 150mm f3.5 there are both "C" and "N" versions.
For the 645 mount I doubt that you saw a true 645 150mm f2.8 C
- that may have been for one of the other Mamiya mounts.
In Mamiya 645 mount I believe the 150mm f2.8 was normally labelled "Mamiya A" like mine.
That is the lens which photosopher and I were raving about earlier.

+ This summary does not cover all the variations of the Mamiya 645 alphabet soup.

Apologies in advance if my summary has offended any Mamiya 645 gurus out there.

All the best,
Terry

Edited by terryg - 08 March 2013 at 00:53