Cambo WRS-M645 and WRS-CA

[Ztacir]

Dear All,

I hope all of you are in good health under these unfortunate circumstances.
As most of us, I am self-quarantined at home in Istanbul.

As an owner of IQ 4150 with Cambo WRS and XF, my XF lenses almost always sit idle aside of Rodenstocks.
Also I have Canon TSE lenses from old days. So I consider getting both Cambo WRS M645 and WRS-CA to use all my lenses with WRS.
I would really wellcome if any of you had an experience with these items.

My best wishes go to you all and please stay home to keep away.

Stay healthy.
Ziya

 

[mkphotomedia]

Ziya--

I run a WRS1000, IQ4150, and have the WRE-CA (which gets more use than I thought it would when I bought it; I shoot architecture). I'm planning to write an article soon, having tested all but one of the current TS-E lenses on the WRE-CA.

If you have a WRS tech cam already, you don't/shouldn't need the M645 adapter (but if you can't mount your IQ4150 to your WRS, you'll need an adapter plate for that; talk to your dealer). The WRE-CA mounts in place of your normal tech camera lenses, so what you end up with is the IQ4150 -> WRS -> WRE-CA -> your Canon glass.

What I've found:

1. All* current TS-E lenses work (*: I've tested everything except the 90, which Canon CPS didn't have in stock for tryout; I'd expect it should behave just fine though). The 17 and 24 have enough coverage to give you a couple mm or so of usable movements; there is noticeable blur along the edge of the image circle in some cases. The 24 benefits from LCC somewhat; for the rest it doesn't matter much. The longer TS-E's vignette, but if you crop, you still get about 100 effective MP of extremely usable image data. You can also use the tilt mechanism on the TS-E's, so if you're in a situation to need/want Scheimpflüg adjustments or tilt blur, you get those options.

2. I wouldn't attempt to use the older TS-E's in this setup; the TS-E 24 MkI and 48 MkI from the early 00's had scarcely enough resolution to give decent results on a 10MP DSLR on a good day; I'd expect them to be a complete waste on an IQ4150.

3. You are limited to electronic shutter only in this configuration. If you're doing something where that's not an issue (landscape, architecture, product where you can drag the shutter if you're firing flashes), that's not a big deal.

Dear All,

I hope all of you are in good health under these unfortunate circumstances.
As most of us, I am self-quarantined at home in Istanbul.

As an owner of IQ 4150 with Cambo WRS and XF, my XF lenses almost always sit idle aside of Rodenstocks.
Also I have Canon TSE lenses from old days. So I consider getting both Cambo WRS M645 and WRS-CA to use all my lenses with WRS.
I would really wellcome if any of you had an experience with these items.

My best wishes go to you all and please stay home to keep away.

Stay healthy.
Ziya

 

[chbenard]

Very interested in reading your conclusions and seeing some image samples. The TS-E lenses already show their limits beyond f8 at 61MP on the Sony A7R IV that has the same pixel pitch as the IQ4 150 - significant loss of sharpness due to diffraction. I suspect it is even worse at 150MP on the IQ4. Downsizing on export is always an option and results in sharp images but I don't see the point of having more resolution to end up having to downsize. In my humble opinion the TS-E lenses performed better on the previous generation of Sony sensors that had larger pixels (including at 100MP on the IQ3/IQ4 100) - I understand these lenses give unmatched field of views at that price point on the 54x40 sensor though.

For architecture and interiors the electronic shutter is a deal breaker for a lot of us that rely on flash exposures for interiors and include moving subjects in exteriors. Alpa came up first with a solution with their focal plane shutter camera that has no built-in movement. Phase One recently solved the issue with the introduction of the X shutter on the new XT camera. That clever solution comes with a fairly prohibitive price tag though. Hopefully prices will come down a bit at some point...

 

[Ztacir]

After reading both comments, I assume that there is no need to spend time and money on the Canon lenses as mines are really old.
However, I think I will give it a try to M645 to use my Schneiders and Phase lenses for XF with my Cambo.
Thank you for the comments.

Ziya

 

[mkphotomedia]

Things are entirely usable at f/8, but yes, things do degrade particularly above f/16. (The same can be said for the Schneider tech cam glass, at least my copies--you could drop glue in the aperture ring on my tech lenses at f/10, and I'd probably take forever to notice you did it.)

If you're key-shifting your flash indoors, then ES is a definite deal breaker, but I've been finding that for a lot of interiors work where I'm dealing with ambient fill and just adding flash for a bit of extra key (or front fill), the 0.4s limitation on flash sync can definitely be worked with, possibly at ISO 50...but that might be because Vancouver's dark and grey most of the time. ;-) I'm eagerly awaiting Phase coming out with the X shutter as a retrofit for Copal 0 shutters, but given how long it's taken Phase to do, well, anything these days, I'm not holding my breath on it.

Very interested in reading your conclusions and seeing some image samples. The TS-E lenses already show their limits beyond f8 at 61MP on the Sony A7R IV that has the same pixel pitch as the IQ4 150 - significant loss of sharpness due to diffraction. I suspect it is even worse at 150MP on the IQ4. Downsizing on export is always an option and results in sharp images but I don't see the point of having more resolution to end up having to downsize. In my humble opinion the TS-E lenses performed better on the previous generation of Sony sensors that had larger pixels (including at 100MP on the IQ3/IQ4 100) - I understand these lenses give unmatched field of views at that price point on the 54x40 sensor though.

For architecture and interiors the electronic shutter is a deal breaker for a lot of us that rely on flash exposures for interiors and include moving subjects in exteriors. Alpa came up first with a solution with their focal plane shutter camera that has no built-in movement. Phase One recently solved the issue with the introduction of the X shutter on the new XT camera. That clever solution comes with a fairly prohibitive price tag though. Hopefully prices will come down a bit at some point...