Contax 645 lens question(s)

[Duff photographer]

Thanks Alan and Chris - I appreciate the images, and the details Nice to see that focus to out-of-focus transition.

If your goal is to make fine medium-sized prints that fulfill the potential of classic Zeiss lenses, there’s not much point peeping at Internet JPGs. Echoing chrismuc, I suggest you simply try out your remaining Zeiss 645 lenses on a GFX body.

For FF I’d been using adapted Zeiss C/Y and Leica lenses on A7r2, and now I’ve been ‘auditioning’ adapted 645 lenses on my GFX. For the image quality you discussed in original post, IMO it’s worth the expense to go with the larger sensor. The difference is in tonal transitions more than in apparent resolution. If you want the classic Zeiss ‘3D’ look, You should be able to achieve it very well this way.

Kirk

PS, if GFX seems expensive then just wait a bit. There’s little or no advantage to be gained from 100 MP, but when this becomes available some folks will be disposing of 50s bodies.

Thanks Kirk.

Yes, it makes sense to make full use of the lenses by using a larger sensor. While the idea was to find out if the C645 lenses hold up on FF (which it does by the accounts already provided), given the restrictions of cost, the price of a Sony A7 (depending on model) plus adapter is not far off a good conditioned 2nd-hand Leica S (which are usually looked after with most already overhauled by Leica) - shame the C645 to Leica adapter is still expensive. I would trust a 2nd-hand Leica (with a fixed sensor) more than a 2nd-hand A7 so I'm slightly leaning more towards a 2nd-hand super-35mm now, assuming the price drops a bit more.

I'm in no hurry at the moment so will wait to see how the second-hand market develops with regard to the GFX as well as the Leica S. With photography as a business venture being in the doldrums (bar for a few lucky ones), one has to think long and hard about the economy of purchase versus the relative improvement in image quality, Zeiss or otherwise.

Cheers,
Duff.

 

[Audii-Dudii]

I know it's been a while, but you said you weren't in a hurry...

Anyway, are you still looking for full-size raw file samples taken with 35, 45, 55, 80, and 140 C645 lenses and an A7R and/or A7RIII body?

If so, let me know, because I'm now in a position to accommodate such a request because 1) a friend recently purchased an A7RIII and I can readily borrow it from him and 2) I finally fabricated a lens mount (using parts of a 26mm extension tube and other bits and pieces I had on hand) so I can use my C645 lenses with rise / fall / shift movements on my Cambo WDS-based FrankenKamera with an A7R:

I must say, I am really quite taken with the quality of the results I've been getting from this setup over the past week since I started working with it.

For example, here's a test photo I took of a house down the street from mine mid-afternoon using a three-panel shift with the 80/f2.8 @ f8 to create a 2.5:1 pano:

One plus to using medium-format lenses with 35 mm-format sensors that I had forgotten about is the lack of vignetting, because it typically occurs outside of the sweet spot of the image circle that's being captured by the smaller sensor.

It's also such a treat to have a substantial range of movements (20 mm or more!) available in all directions, including simultaneously.

Of course, working with the apertures pre-set is a minor nuisance during the day and a not-quite-major nuisance at night, but I've been scheming and believe I can ultimately gain control over the apertures from the A7R by gutting an adapter and incorporating it into my camera.

To that end, I have ordered one of the new Kipon adapters, which are now claimed to work with C645 lenses via the NAM-1 adapter, to determine whether it's as amenable to modification as the original version was (but which, sadly, did not work with C645 lenses.)

So stay tuned and, as I mentioned earlier, let me know if you're still interested in viewing some raw file samples.

 

[Duff photographer]

I know it's been a while, but you said you weren't in a hurry...

Anyway, are you still looking for full-size raw file samples taken with 35, 45, 55, 80, and 140 C645 lenses and an A7R and/or A7RIII body?

Hi Audii,

Indeed I am and many thanks for keeping me in mind! Very much appreciated.

I did manage to make a Franken-adapter for the 120mm Makro, no aperture control of course, and was surprised at the amount of resolution present on the digital sensor at f4. I knew it was a good lens anyway but it struck me the way the file could be handled during processing.

I look forward to the RAWs :grin:

All the best,
Duff

 

[cjl]

Realize this is an old thread but the participants appear to have the expertise I'm looking for. I am trying to adapt a Contax 645 35mm lens for use as a shift lens on a GFX 100. The Kipon shift adapter I have appears to work well enough with the lens wide open, but since the Kipon lacks electronic connections there doesn't appear to be any way to stop down the Contax 35's electronic aperture. I know from adapting Canon lenses with what appears to be a similar electronic aperture system that you can 'freeze' a lens' aperture at, say, f14 by stopping down the lens to that on a Canon body and then un-mounting the lens with the camera still turned on. Would any of you know whether the same applies to Contax 645 lenses? If that works, I am considering using one of the recently issued C645-GFX smart adapters to stop the lens down and then remounting onto the shift adapter. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Audii-Dudii]

Realize this is an old thread but the participants appear to have the expertise I'm looking for. I am trying to adapt a Contax 645 35mm lens for use as a shift lens on a GFX 100. The Kipon shift adapter I have appears to work well enough with the lens wide open, but since the Kipon lacks electronic connections there doesn't appear to be any way to stop down the Contax 35's electronic aperture. I know from adapting Canon lenses with what appears to be a similar electronic aperture system that you can 'freeze' a lens' aperture at, say, f14 by stopping down the lens to that on a Canon body and then un-mounting the lens with the camera still turned on. Would any of you know whether the same applies to Contax 645 lenses? If that works, I am considering using one of the recently issued C645-GFX smart adapters to stop the lens down and then remounting onto the shift adapter. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Although I don't have the specific adapter you mention, I do have Contax 645 smart lens adapters from Fringer and Kipon for other camera mounts and they work exactly as you describe when mounted on my Sony A7R and A5100 bodies.

If you don't already have the adapter and a suitable body to mount it on, another possibility you might consider is buying a Contax N smart adapter, a Contax NAM-1 adapter, and an inexpensive, used, APS-C format Sony E-mount body, such as the semi-scruffy A5100 I bought for $100-125 (I forget which) via eBay. I mounted this setup on my (modified) Cambo WDS so I carried just one slightly larger and heavier camera instead of two separate ones. Of course, it looked a bit clunky, but worked very well for my nighttime photography, which precluded presetting the aperture to f8 and leaving it there because I needed the aperture wide-open to compose and focus in the (often very) dim light:

As a bonus, this approach also provides you with a built-in backup camera that can be used in emergencies should your Fuji fail ... win-win!

 

[DougDolde]

I hope you don't think I will read all this

 

[drevil]

Would any of you know whether the same applies to Contax 645 lenses?

short answer yes

 

[cjl]

short answer yes

Thanks for confirming.