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Re: [OM] OT: Why are the Mamiya Lenses so good?

Subject: Re: [OM] OT: Why are the Mamiya Lenses so good?
From: Dawid Loubser <dawidl@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:59:47 +0200
Why does anybody say the RB67 is not a good hand-held camera?

I agree that it would be terrible for use in an airplane, because if  
hand-held, this camera
must will be used with the waist-level finder, it totally sucks with  
the (huge) prism
finder.

I have one of the oldest original series-1 RB's around, it has serial  
number 86! The camera is
noisy, but when the huge mirror flops gently up, coupled with the  
camera weight, it's almost completely
vibration-free.

I've posted this one before, but this shot was taken hand-held at 1/8s  
on a very very dark street.
The in-focus areas are as sharp as the shot I posted in my original  
message of this thread. This camera
is *superb* hand-held, hanging off your neck, there is no vibration  
whatsoever. In my experience, I could
not have taken this shot with an OM camera and ISO 100 slide film in  
the same conditions (hand-held, wide open
lens with ~35mm FOV), with anywhere near the same quality, even though  
the RB lens is only f/4.5.

http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs49/f/2009/190/8/7/Recursion_of_misplaced_values_by_philosomatographer.jpg

It's also a lot better for Macro than my Olympus OM-1/OM-2 at similar  
shutter speeds, and hence my pet project
to build a frankenstein Macro camera out of Mamiya (shutter) and OM  
(lens) bits. Really, I don't
understand the "reputation" of the RB67 as a shaky camera, it's a  
smooth, gentle giant.

P.S. As far as I understand, there was a lot of quality control  
variance on the earlier lenses, hence maybe why they
built up a reputation as being bad? Or people are using severely  
abused examples. I am constantly pleased by the quality
I am getting, the RB was the first thing what put me on my dark and  
evil path of selling my digital equipment, it was just so
much better for my needs.

On 22 Oct 2009, at 5:05 AM, Sue Pearce wrote:

> On the other had, I don't see why a 2 1/4 camera should be limited  
> to tripod
> only.  Hell, there was a lot of great 4x5 shot hand held earlier...
>
> Bill Pearce


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