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Vibrations & the Contax 645

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ddk

Guest
In the following I used my 350mm/ f4 Contax at f4 and iso 50. That got me to 125s not as low as the 1/15 above, but it was enough to show blur

and how to stop it!

In order
1. the scene
2. 2s delay (mirror up) with a good tripod mount
3. 2s shutter using the manfrotto on the camera and the lens forward on mount for max stability
You lost me here Victor, do you mean using the Manfrotto support arm mentioned by Jack above?
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Bradley - fascinating reading - especially the bit about using specialist tripod mounting.

My 300MM HC arrives in the next day or so..I will make some tests using it as is as well as with the 1.7X extender. I have given up trying to use my FE 250F4 with or without 1.4X extender on a 200 series body - the mirror slap is ungovernable..-:) I await Son's delivery of a Contax body to test.

As a side note - many may not be happy to hear that the 645 Mamiya body (ahem) does not have as good engineered infrastructure in it - to fine tune focus as other body types.

Victor - all i can see with yoru 'fixed' crop is totally blown highlights....but impressive detail in the non cropped shot - even on a screen.
Peter, when you do get to the HC 300, read up on the mirror delay feature for hand held work or working without putting the mirror up with that lens. Pretty interesting.
 

PeterA

Well-known member
Peter, when you do get to the HC 300, read up on the mirror delay feature for hand held work or working without putting the mirror up with that lens. Pretty interesting.

Hi Marc - I will do that , currently have 50ms plugged in as a standard delay for hand held....on a tripod I will use mirror up as well.
 

gogopix

Subscriber
You lost me here Victor, do you mean using the Manfrotto support arm mentioned by Jack above?
Yes. Delay leaves blur, still. the bar helps, but not as much as just going to 1000s. However, haven't gone back to 'fix' the second shot to see what could be done. I suspect it could be a good shot.

I guess I just don't see the 350 at f4 being a tool to use at 1/15s

BTW, the 60MP backs don't YET seem to be straining the zeiss lenses. I'm happy, but then I use a 2x FL as a ROT for shutter speed. I guess I never had a scene that need a telephoto that wasn't moving more than camera vibrations.

We all push the envelope, but I rarely shoot wide open, don't have the need for long exposures with a long lens.

Then of course there is such a thing as LIGHT! In many cases, that works too! :D

Victor
 

carstenw

Active member
I just shot some Adox CHS 25 on my Contax 645 with the Macro 120 on the weekend, on an aluminium tripod. This film is fine-grained enough that I might be able to see if there were any ill effects around 1/15s. I will update when I have developed and scanned the film.
 

gogopix

Subscriber
- Victor all i can see with yoru 'fixed' crop is totally blown highlights....but impressive detail in the non cropped shot - even on a screen.
Well your eyes are better than my PS at 100%
I used the navigator, and spent 10min trying to find 255 255 255

nope not there, but then most monitors CLAIM 8 bits but are really 6-7bits

No there is nothing blown, but there IS a lot of contrast (actually, I would not feel badly if there WERE blown HLTs. All I did was increase xposure to see the definition of the plant better.)

The message to me is not that Contax or any other camera has vibration; that's afact of life. The question is how to mitigate. SO far the only real success I have had (other than weights and second bar stabilizer) is to shorten exposure. (and get the light or ISO up, or, with good DR, underexpose minus 1-2EV))

Victor
 

woodyspedden

New member
I just moved up to a 5 series Gitzo tripod (5541LS) and it has helped quite a bit. (My old tripod was a 2541)

Now if I can just hire a Sherpa to lug the damned thing around %@*&

Woody
 

gogopix

Subscriber
woody
As you see above I was only partially successful with Manfrotto arm (on a 5 series gitzo witha Jobo gimbal)

Are you aware of any clamp for the FRONT of the lens that would give 3 pt rigidity

Theretically should work, and should be that expensive

(BTW, the click and slap of mirrors are around middle C or 250HZ. so about 1-2 feet pretty consistent with the length of the Contax plus 350mm and hood

I guess the mirror slap coul be the issue, but not after 2sec delay.
I stil think it is a fundamental resonance of a few hundred Hz, so you gotta get over 1/350 anyway.

How hAVE YOU BEEN. sTILL HAVE THE hASSEY?

BEST REGARDS
vICTOR

PS Love the len I got from you!
 

BradleyGibson

New member
Update for folks:

I've sent the Contax 350/4 back for a refund, as I was unable to get critically sharp photographs from it. It may be that I had a decentered element or some such contributing to the performance, but all I can do is look at the results.

I purchased a Hasselblad FE 350/4 to replace it. I took some test shots with it, and can confirm that you do want the APO when dealing with telephoto glass. Vibration characteristics are still there, but are somewhat different from the Contax, which leads me to believe the Contax' lens foot may be contributing to the issue.

It looks like I'll be sending the FE 350/4 back as well.

*sigh* Anybody got a 300/2.8 tele-superachromat they'd like to lend a nice guy indefinitely?? :)
-Brad
 

MFnLF

Member
I tried my Hasselblad Tele-Superachromat 350 on 501CM with P25 this morning. The tree is about 60 feet away. Pictures seem to be very sharp at all speeds. Here's a one shot at f8, 1/4 second, the 2nd one is 100% crop.
 

BradleyGibson

New member
MFnLF,

Looks good to me as well... The leaf shutter looks to be making a big difference here in the final result...

Thank you for posting--the SA's are crazy expensive, but it looks like they may be my only option. But before I go there, I'd like to look for other 100% samples from the Contax 350 Tele-ApoTessar. If I can discover that perhaps just my copy was bad, I'd be willing to (try to) track down another one.

I think I can manage the shutter vibrations, now that I know they're an issue. There are solutions involving extended rails that seem to be doing the trick for a few folks who've contacted me offline.

I've only seen Victor's Contax? 350/4 at 100%--happily, his does not appear to have the vibration issues I had, but his shutter speeds were much higher than I'm trying to explore (high shutter speeds mask the issue(s) I'm exploring). Nevertheless I couldn't evaluate critial sharpness on Victor's subject matter.

So if anyone can post sample shots from a Contax 350/4 of texture (tree bark, brick, etc.) at 100%, I'd be most grateful.

Thanks, everyone,
-Brad
 

MFnLF

Member
Brad,

Telephoto lenses are more sensitive to shutter vibrations, and the leaf shutter does have some advantages here over focal-plane shutter. A friend had suggested me to switch to Contax 645 platform, but I did not. One of my concerns was its focal-plane shutter vibration.

Here's a picture I shot with a Nikkor 300M large format lens on a Linhof MT45 camera with P25 last week (f11, 1/60 second). The Copal #1 shutter works very well, and I was surprised at these amazing details. You could barely see the tiny fly on the left side of the 100% crop.

BTW, I do have a 300SA f2.8 lens, and if you ever visit Southern California, feel free to try it. I have never had a chance to shoot it with a MFDB.

Ling
 

MFnLF

Member
This afternoon, I suddenly came up with an idea to resolve the slow sync issue with my Hasselblad 205FCC. Now with the help of a Phase One sync cable, I can successfully shoot with the 300mm Tele-Superachromat lens on 205FCC without any modifications. The output from P25 is just stunning, here's a picture of my neighbor's house across street. It's about the 200 feet away, and you can see the 100% crop has amazing details. As for now I don't notice any vibration problem with the 205FCC focal-plane shutter.
 

David K

Workshop Member
This turned out to be quite an expensive post for me. Waiting on my 203FE and the Hassy adapter for the Sinar back so I can go the leaf shutter route with the 350 SA myself.
 

BradleyGibson

New member
I went from leaf shutter to focal plane shutter because I needed higher shutter speeds; I figured the shutters would be well damped/lightweight enough to work well at the tele end, but it is looking like this is not the case.

Also, because my work is usually done in available light (I'm a nature photographer), lenses with a larger maximum aperture let me freeze the action with a higher shutter speed. I think with an ISO 50 back and a 350/5.6 my typical shutter speeds wouldn't be fast enough to freeze branches, leaves, waves and certainly not animals.

There simply may not be any good options out there for me. But one last idea I have--can you do me the favor of shooting that same scene of your neighbor's house once with your 205FCC's focal plane shutter and once again with the leaf shutter? (Ensures both shots were taken with the same focus setting.) I would be very interested to know how much vibration the focal plane shutter causes at the same shutter speed. The leaf shutter shot above that you posted looks perfect to me.

Thanks very much,
-Brad
 
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BradleyGibson

New member
Oh, and since this thread is becoming an archive of test samples for medium format telephoto lenses, here is a comparison shot between my "vibration free" samples done with the Contax Tele-ApoTessar 350/4 and the Hasselblad FE Tele-Tessar 350/4.

Now it's pretty obvious to me why they went ahead and developed the Apo version...

Comparison Shot.jpg

-Brad

P.S. By "vibration free" I tried to remove all vibration from the image by leaving the mirror up, opening the shutter for a long time and moving a large card out of the optical path for a moment before returning it (without touching the optic). Obviously not how I'd do it in the field, but it would serve as a reference for (near) zero vibration.
 
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carstenw

Active member
This afternoon, I suddenly came up with an idea to resolve the slow sync issue with my Hasselblad 205FCC. Now with the help of a Phase One sync cable, I can successfully shoot with the 300mm Tele-Superachromat lens on 205FCC without any modifications. The output from P25 is just stunning, here's a picture of my neighbor's house across street. It's about the 200 feet away, and you can see the 100% crop has amazing details. As for now I don't notice any vibration problem with the 205FCC focal-plane shutter.
Okay, I'll bite: so what is the fix?
 
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