Newest MFD member....

[Andy Biggs]

The best answer might be the 240mm LS lens if it has enough reach for you. That should be much easier to get sharp images with.

Perhaps, but I doubt 240mm will be enough focal length for me. I thought long and hard about getting into the Contax system so I could use their 350mm lens.

 

[tsjanik]

Although not specifically related to the Mamiya 300mm, as some have illustrated in this thread, the Pentax 645D MFD camera along with various Pentax telephoto 645 lenses such as the FA 300mm and FA 400mm, aquaints itself to long lens use quite nicely.

I just took the attached shot with the 645D and Pentax 600 f5.6 A* 645 Manual focus lens in part for continued testing of this lens. Tripod mounted of course but image would have greatly benefited from using additional long lens techniques.

(OK, so it's the obligitory cat picture )

Dave (D&A)

Hi Dave:

Nice to see you posting here; I thought you went over to the D800

What are your impressions of the 600mm? It's a lens I'm very interested in trying.

Tom

 

[D&A]

Hi Tom,

I don't want to take up too much space here with my response, as the thread is mostly about long lens options with the IQ/Mamiya system. I hope though it does provide some info that long lens options are avaialble in medium format and in some cases can hold their own (with of course limitations) against 35mm systems.

In response to your question, nope, haven't gone to the "dark side"...LOL, although I am using both the D800E and 645D currently for different purposes. The 100% crop I attached to this response is only partially indicative of what the Pentax 600mm 645 lens is capable of. The reason I say partially, is that the shot was taken at ISO 1000 due to low light conditions, which in itself is good on the 645D, but will indroduce some noise and loss of detail. Addtionally the reason I haven't completed and posted my evaluation of this lens's performance, is I'm finding that slight changes in how both the 645D as well as the lens is handled during shooting as related to techinique, can often yield widely variable results. This posted shot, which was solely taken as part of a test was where the lens was simply mounted on a Wimberbley side arm and it was in free rotation mode on both axis, not an ideal set-up for extracting maxium sharpness nor performance. A two point support where both the lens and 645D are independently supported (seperately) yields considerably greater sharpness...yet of course is impractical for moving subjects. So in essence, I purposely took this shot knowing that a number of important variables were not optimumly set (free floating axis while shooting, ISO 1000, subject slighting moving, no cable release, single support for lens only etc.). Of course the lens is manual focus.

So the short/brief answer to your question is the lens is capable of excellent, sharp professional results at f8 and beyond for use in very sizeable large format prints and when used at f5.6, is eminantly useful for decent-good sharpness and output with a fairly noticable but not tremendously significant drop in performance. Some limitations may be present when shooting at f5.6, depending what ones desired output and use of the files are going to be. At f8 and especially beyond, the resolving power and capability of the lens went well beyond expectations. Again this is from use of the lens on a cropped 645 body (the 645D). One though should not expect the extreme acuity of lenses such as the current Nikon Supertelephotos, but the pentax 600mm does hold it's own in a great many situations.

I'm also testing this lens with Pentax's 1.4x teleconverter under various conditions and when optimal, it's quite promising (for fairly critical use).
Results with proper lens/camera support along with impecable technique and shooting at low ISO is of course superior...but that would not have been real world shooting in this particular situation. These particular "Little ones" are constantly moving/heavily breathing and rarely sit still...LOL!

Dave (D&A)

(100% Crop of the full frame image that was posted in a previous post, with light to moderate non-optimal sharpening applied)

 

[etrump]

Wayne,

I'll be interested to hear of your experiences with the RRS mount. I bought one and tried it for a while but ended up reverting to using MUP and extended delay as I wasn't seeing the expected image quality improvements with the support as I also was still getting variable results.

That said that was with my first copy of this lens so maybe I'll give it another try ...

I cheated and made one of these with a six inch mounting rail. Mounted the lens to one end and nylon screws with rubber bumpers on the other end. Made a huge difference.

 

[stngoldberg]

Hasselblad 300mm on a tripod with a remote (Wireless) shutter release about ten feet from the Goldfinch. This lens continues to astonish me regarding its resolution

Stanley

 

[dick]

I use a Hasselblad H2. The Hasselblad HC 300mm lens, like all of the HC lenses, is a leaf shutter lens and the images from it are exceptionally sharp, particularly if you can use MLU.
Enjoy your shooting. I went to Tanzania last year and was lazy. I brought a new Panasonic GH2 and regret it.

I have H4D-60/HC300mm and a GH2/14-140mm.

The H4D is about four times as many pixels, but you do not need much vibration to get a worse picture with the bigger camera... and the GH2 works well at high ISO for high shutter speeds.

The format is, I think 24mm as opposed to 53.7mm, so the angular field of view with the 14-140 at the top end would be similar.

For narrow angles of view I have a Novoflex with 400mm and 640mm lens heads, which I can use on the GH2...

As the Novoflex lenses have no glass behind the aperture (making it easy to add a copal shutter), I am thinking about using these lens heads on my Sinar P3 with my 60Mpx?

 

[GrahamWelland]

I am considering ordering this long lens support from RRS to see if it can help. I always take several images and the sharpness varies from shot to shot.

I decided to give my RRS bracket another try with my newer 300/4.5 APO & DF/IQ160. I also tested with/without MUP and MUP & delay. As would be expected shooting without MUP at less than 1/500 was soft - even on the tripod. Due to light conditions I was shooting 1/40 - 1/3rd second here at f/8 /f7.1 which typically is a nightmare for shutter/MUP bounce or any other type of possible ringing vibration.

Anyway, with the new copy of the lens and the RRS bracket I was getting very acceptable results. All MUP & 4 sec delay on release.:

1/40 @ f/8 ISO50:

1/3 @ f/7.1 ISO50:

100% crop - LR std output no sharpening. With deconvolution sharpening this renders extremely sharply and remember this is 100% pixel peep unsharpened:

 

[etrump]

100% crop - LR std output no sharpening. With deconvolution sharpening this renders extremely sharply and remember this is 100% pixel peep unsharpened:

What are you using for deconvolution sharpening?

 

[Wayne Fox]

did you try it with the camera mounted to the tripod instead of the lens? That's what I'm thinking of trying. I think I get better results most of the time now without the lens support using my 300 and the DF mounted to the tripod.

 

[GrahamWelland]

Ed,

I've just been using ACR/LR 4.1 which brings on deconvolution sharpening with higher levels of the detail setting. It seems a lot gentler and cleaner than C1 Pro sharpening IMHO which seems to add artifacts quickly. That said, I haven't compared these images in print with those processed in C1.

These were all done using just the default sharpen settings in ACR with nothing extra added other than down sampling for the web.

I know that Topaz and Focus Magic have deconvolution too but I dare say there are others too.

 

[GrahamWelland]

did you try it with the camera mounted to the tripod instead of the lens? That's what I'm thinking of trying. I think I get better results most of the time now without the lens support using my 300 and the DF mounted to the tripod.

Wayne

Yes I tried camera on tripod with no collar or support, lens collar on tripod and lens collar on RRS mount. I didn't try body on RRS mount with front rollers only - is that what you were thinking of?.

I didn't find the lens/no collar vs lens with collar on tripod to be very different this time around although the light was dropping so it was hardly a comprehensive test with short->long exposures. My new lens seemed to perform better than my previous one, particularly when mounted on the scaffolding! At the end of the day I just wanted to try the different combos with MUP in a situation I know well and see how sharp the results could be.

 

[pesto]

One word of caution is that there is a significant problem using longer Mamiya lenses with a high res back like the IQ160 because of vibration issues with the mirror on the DF. I have never seen what I consider to be a sharp image made with the 300mm Mamiya, even where the camera was mounted on a tripod with MLU. It is one of the reasons I use a Hasselblad H2. The Hasselblad HC 300mm lens, like all of the HC lenses, is a leaf shutter lens and the images from it are exceptionally sharp, particularly if you can use MLU.
Enjoy your shooting. I went to Tanzania last year and was lazy. I brought a new Panasonic GH2 and regret it.

Hello Andy and welcome. I would humbly take exception with the above note. I shoot with a P1 DF, P40+ back and my Mamiya 500 APO and am quite pleased with the results. While my "keeper" rate falls somewhat short of those shooting the big VR lenses, what I do get right, is really right.
Below are two recent images with accompanying crops to demonstrate my point. I might add that neither of these were shot with the mirror up as one might imagine given the nature of the subjects. I should add that none of these images were sharpened in post processing, what you see is what I got...as they say.
If you can find a 500 APO, I would heartily recommend that you give it serious consideration.

Douglas Benson

 

[Andy Biggs]

Douglas, those are some seriously sharp images. Thanks for the recommendation on the 500mm. I am going to pick up the 300mm f/2.8 APO for sure, and that might be good enough for my purposes and style of photography for now, as I have a 2x teleconverter to go along with it to make 600mm f/5.6. It isn't something I want to do often, but I could do it in a pinch. Ideally I would have a 400mm lens that was on the fast(er) side, like f/4, but Mamiya never made such a lens. I did think long an hard about going with my IQ160 on a Contax system, as they have their 350mm, but in the end I went the easier route that has more support.

 

[pesto]

Thanks for the kind words Andy. I previously had the 300 f/2.8 APO and, try as I might, simply could not get acceptable images with this combination. The lens was fine by itself but invariably fell aapt when the 2X was applied.

 

[Andy Biggs]

Good info for me to remember! I always shoot on a bean bag in Africa, and I can always place a bean bag on top of the lens for added stabilization. Most of my images aren't in-your-face telephoto type shots, so 300mm will likely be enough for my needs. I do salivate over the 500mm, though.

 

[pesto]

Andy,
Back in the ages of film photography, I was a very happy C645 shooter. It was a great system and the 350 worked well with the 1.4 teleconverter, but as you have pointed out, support is essentially absent these days. Here is one shot with the 350 sans TC:

 

[Jack]

Graham,

Looking at your image above, I felt it worth commenting. I found that I got better (sharper) results with the 300/DF combo on the tripod if I removed the lens collar and mounted using to the body.

FWIW,

 

[Andy Biggs]

Just a quick update on my kit as of now. I have purchased a brand new copy of the Mamiya 300mm f/2.8 APO, 2x Mamiya teleconverter (used from B&H) and also the 200mm f/2.8 APO.

Those two lenses are pretty darned amazing, I have to say. For wildlife the manual focus and metering will be new to me (only spot metering is available), and I shove off for Botswana in less than 2 weeks to take it on its first real outing. After 13 days in Botswana I then head over to Namibia to run a PODAS trip. Kevin Raber and Bill Atkinson will be my co-leaders. Should be fun!

 

[pesto]

Hello Jack,
I am not certain as to what you are describing by,
" ...removed the lens collar and mounted using to the body."
Can you please elaborate a bit.

Thank you.

 

[GrahamWelland]

I can probably answer that one - basically remove the collar and mount the body on the tripod head and not use the tripod mount on the collar on the lens. i.e. treat it like any standard smaller lens.