Mamiya MF lenses on 5DII?

[Ryan Mueller]

So I have some Mamiya 645 MF prime lenses at my disposal and was wondering what some of your opinions are on whether or not I should invest in a $100 adapter for them? Of course the iris would be controlled by the lens ring, but the focus on these guys is as smooth as butter and has hard stops! Any opinions?

[Ryan Mueller]

I decided to go ahead and order the adapter, even if the lenses only work out for playing around with. I'm sure that they will be adequate for shooting video? At least I'll be able to pull some super smooth racks with them. As soon as I get the adapter I will be running some tests on a 150mm/3.5, 80mm/2.8, and a 70mm/2.8. These are all lenses from a Mamiya 645 Medium Format film camera so it will be interesting to see how they hold up on the full image sensor of the 5DII.

[David W. Taylor]

Ahh...I used to have a 'Mami 645'.
Won't the lenses only being using the centre prortion of their image when on a '35mm sensor' like the 5D2?
I love the using the tiny Olympus OM1 lenses on the 5D2 but beware that adaptors can sometimes be a rather poor fit. Both my OM-EOS adaptors (cheap ones admittedly!) have required 'schimming' by putting a piece of tape between the lenses and adaptor.
You'll be getting the Fotodiox 645-EOS ones I guess?

DaveT

[Robert Esmonde]

David, you might find that your 'cheap' adaptors for the Olympus lenses already have an expandable cut in them to improve the fit. To the best of my recollection there were two or three little split metal sections inside the adapter which could be gently expanded with a small screwdriver, trial and error fashion, to tighten the fit.

I'm attaching an image sent to me by my vendor with a green arrow indicating the split metal area used to improve the fit.

[Ryan Mueller]

Originally Posted by David W. Taylor

Ahh...I used to have a 'Mami 645'.
Won't the lenses only being using the centre prortion of their image when on a '35mm sensor' like the 5D2?
I love the using the tiny Olympus OM1 lenses on the 5D2 but beware that adaptors can sometimes be a rather poor fit. Both my OM-EOS adaptors (cheap ones admittedly!) have required 'schimming' by putting a piece of tape between the lenses and adaptor.
You'll be getting the Fotodiox 645-EOS ones I guess?

DaveT

Not sure about only using the center of the glass on a 35mm sensor, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. Yes, I will be using the Fotodiox adapters. People have been saying some pretty good things about them. I'm also contemplating a Mirex tilt-shift adapter for these lenses if all goes well.

[Chris Barcellos]

I will be curious to see how these work out.... Anyone have a Kowa 6 to EOS lens adapter out there ? I have had one of those with three lenses since the early 70's......

[Buba Kastorski]

I have KAWA from ebay to adopt my nikon lenses, cheap, but unexpectedly good quality,
I have a few of them and just keep them on the lenses, of course it works for manual lenses only.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Buba Kastorski

I have KAWA from ebay to adopt my nikon lenses, cheap, but unexpectedly good quality,
I have a few of them and just keep them on the lenses, of course it works for manual lenses only.

Different Kowa... Kowa 6 was a 2 1/4 camera in 70's that was supposed to try to compete with Hasselblad... Had some great lenses and great images, but their camera body had some mechanical issues making it less than reliable. Mine still operating fine, but that is why it never caught on professionallly..

[Ryan Mueller]

I finally got a chance to do some testing with the Photodiox adapter and the Mamiya 645 lenses and am quite shocked at the results! Just a refresher, I tested a 70mm 2.8, 80mm 2.8, and a 150mm 3.5. The 70 and the 150 are a little soft and I probably wouldn't use them for still photos, but work pretty well for video. The 80mm however is a different story all together! Super sharp at any aperture. It is even more sharp than my 50mm 1.4 (non L) Below is a 21mp shot through the 80mm that has been cropped at 100%. I just added another one shot with macro filters. The one of the fly is cropped to 66%. Both of these were shot without sticks.

All of the focus rings on these lenses are extremely smooth and virtually free of any noise. I will be using the 150mm primarily for a moderate telephoto for rack focuses as it is smoother and much easier to pull focus with than any of my Canon lenses. The Mamiya's have hard stops too woo hoo! Great for using with a follow focus.

I never thought that medium format lenses would fair so well on the 21mp 5DII.

My hat goes off to the people at Fotodiox as well. The adapter is solid and looks very professional. Shipping was fast too.

[Dutch Simpson]

Wow, Ryan, that looks amazing, what shutter speed? With out sticks did it have to be rather high?

[Ryan Mueller]

Thanks Dutch! Yes the shutter speed was set fairly high on both of these shots. The bee was at 1/1250 and the fly at 1/800.

[Mike Hannon]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Anyone have a Kowa 6 to EOS lens adapter out there ?

I've just ordered a Pentacon 6 tilt adapter and a 90mm Vega 2.8 lens to accompany it.

The lens was $50, the adapter $115!

EDIT: Ryan, I'd be very curious to know more about the breathing behaviour of the lenses you purchased. I'm looking for an economical lens that doesn't breathe

[Ryan Mueller]

The 150mm is minimal while the 80mm is pretty moderate. Check out the test clips below. They are pretty quick and dirty so I wasn't really concerned with getting them teribly smooth. Just testing the breathing.

[Tramm Hudson]

Originally Posted by Ryan Mueller

So I have some Mamiya 645 MF prime lenses at my disposal[...]

How does the aperture compare when a medium format lens is mounted on a 35 mm body? I understand the crop factor with respect to the focal length, but how does it affect the equivalent aperture and depth of field? Naïvely it would seem that the aperture would increase by the same factor: a MF 80 mm f/2.8 lens would have a physical aperture of 28 mm, but since the equivalent focal length is now 170 mm, does this mean that the aperture is equal to f/6?

[Daniel Browning]

Originally Posted by Tramm Hudson

How does the aperture compare when a medium format lens is mounted on a 35 mm body? I understand the crop factor with respect to the focal length, but how does it affect the equivalent aperture and depth of field? Naïvely it would seem that the aperture would increase by the same factor: a MF 80 mm f/2.8 lens would have a physical aperture of 28 mm, but since the equivalent focal length is now 170 mm, does this mean that the aperture is equal to f/6?

Yes! You got it exactly right. The "crop factor" applies to f-number just as much as it does the focal length. For example:

• 50mm on 35mm (36x24mm) has an AOV (horizontal angle of view) equivalent to 83mm on MF-645 (Medium Format 60x45mm).
• 25mm on Four Thirds (18x13.5mm) has an AOV equivalent to 50mm on 35mm.
• 8mm on a Digicam (6x4.5mm) has an AOV equivalent to 50mm on the 5D2.

The same exact thing applies to f-number for equivalent DOF (for the same bellows factor):

• 50mm f/4 on 35mm has DOF equivalent to 83mm f/6.7 on MF-645.
• 25mm f/2 on Four Thirds has DOF equivalent to 50mm f/4 on 35mm.
• 8mm f/2.8 on a Digicam has DOF equivalent to 50mm f/16.8 the 5D2.

It also applies to diffraction. For example, these all have the same exact amount of diffraction:

• 8mm f/2.8 on a Digicam
• 25mm f/11.7 on Four Thirds
• 50mm f/23.4 on 35mm
• 83mm f/39.0 on MF-645.

It also applies to the total amount of light with the same luminance and shutter speed. The larger formats have lower intensity of light per area, but they have more area, so the total amount of light comes out the same in the end. If you can increase luminance or integration time, then the larger formats will get more light, even with the narrower f-number.