Mamyia ZD vs H3D with 22MP

[Jack]

IIRC -- and it's been a long time ago that I shot Contax -- you could only manually set shutter speeds to 8 sec or use B, but the way it was designed you got up to 30 seconds automatically in Av mode. Maybe somebody that owns one will confirm this.

 

[carstenw]

Yup, but given that the camera has both manual and electronic shutter release holes, you can use B to get times of any length. I don't know how that interacts with MFDBs though, not having tried that.

 

[thomas]

you can use B to get times of any length. I don't know how that interacts with MFDBs though, not having tried that.

With a Phase back B mode doesn't work; so it's limited to the 8 seconds. Actually.
However you can use the DB like on a view camera - you just have to put a thin sheet of paper on the contacts of the DB so that there is no communication from camera to DB. You can use a flash sync and wakeup cable for long exposure in B mode. Works very well.

 

[carstenw]

Hey, that's high tech! Why did Phase do that?

 

[thomas]

Hey, that's high tech! Why did Phase do that?

it's a limitation of the Contax, not of the Phase DBs.
But I can't explain the technical background, I'm sorry.

 

[carstenw]

Er, if the Contax can do exposures of any length with a cable release, the very worst case would be that it could not communicate this to the back, and so Phase could have provided a way to start the back manually? Or am I missing something?

 

[thomas]

Or am I missing something?

Maybe Doug, Yair, Steve or some else can explain it...
If possible Phase would certainly have done something for their favorite camera ;-) ... I guess.

 

[carstenw]

Well, one would imagine so, if it were really their favorite camera, but if it works with a piece of paper between the contacts, then all they would really need to do is to make a mode that behaves like that, no? Too weird.