Mamiya RB67 (and the MF rite of passage)

[Mike Shimwell]

Hi Dawid

The 7 is a lovely camera, although like you I will sometimes run into issues with the minimum focus distances. Often that is when I would be using my 35mm camera in any case, though I can see the case for a MF slr like the RB as well.

At present I am scanning, but I am in regular contact with a local shop waiting for the irght secondhand enlarger/lens to arrive. Then I'll need to convince Sue about darkening a room...

Mike

 

[Dawid Loubser]

At present I am scanning, but I am in regular contact with a local shop waiting for the irght secondhand enlarger/lens to arrive. Then I'll need to convince Sue about darkening a room...

That is so worth it... My RB came alive after I started making analogue prints. I do have a very understanding wife though - I don't have a darkroom at home yet (difficult when you're renting a small townhouse) but an unused office at my work is used for the darkroom. I am looking to building an outdoor darkroom at my house within the next year or so, It's really frustrating to access a darkroom only once a week when you have so many photographs to print

I use an Omega D5XL which we got for less than $200, it's a beauty.

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Two prints I scanned today, exposed through my RB67 (both with the 37mm lens):

I seriously have a love/hate relationship with this camera. Such a beast to lug around, but the prints are so satisfying and forgiving to make.

 

[Asher Kelman]

That is so worth it... My RB came alive after I started making analogue prints. I do have a very understanding wife though - I don't have a darkroom at home yet (difficult when you're renting a small townhouse) but an unused office at my work is used for the darkroom. I am looking to building an outdoor darkroom at my house within the next year or so, It's really frustrating to access a darkroom only once a week when you have so many photographs to print

I use an Omega D5XL which we got for less than $200, it's a beauty.

Would you dare use the color head too or not trust the filters and then go through color processing yourself?

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Two prints I scanned today, exposed through my RB67 (both with the 37mm lens): seriously have a love/hate relationship with this camera. Such a beast to lug around, but the prints are so satisfying and forgiving to make.

This image is appealing with the very sharp angle and the patterns of the bark and spreading branches.

Here, you're proving why a Mamiya 7II is not good enough as it wouldn't focus that close.

BTW, have you tried you printing a larger B&W negative on transparent film from a scanned file and then use that for a silver gelatin contact print?

Asher

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Would you dare use the color head too or not trust the filters and then go through color processing yourself?

Asher

I am not sure I follow your question fully, Asher? I use the colour head to control contrast on my B&W prints on multigrade paper, but I have not dared try and make colour prints in the darkroom. I am not quite geared up for it, the chemicals are not available around here, etc. If I did fixed-grade pritning, the colour head would be a pain, but all my prints are split-grade (two exposures, one through maximum yellow, the other through maximum magenta) so the colour head works fine.

It would be fun to print colour, no doubt! But that's a project for another year, once I have mastered (to my own satisfaction) the monochrome medium.

 

[Dawid Loubser]

This image is appealing with the very sharp angle and the patterns of the bark and spreading branches.

Thank you, asher! I took this for my dad, who is a collector of sorts of tree photographs. This whole roll of film I shot (including the hand image below) was an excercise in making images with a fisheye lens that do not look unnaturally distorted. For the tree photo, the camera is literally jammed up to the trunk. If I pointed it only slightly more upwards, I could, at the top of the frame, see the ground behind me. 180 degrees (diagonally) is wide! It took a good 10 minutes to compose this image to eliminate the surroundings, the ultimate camera position was unbelievably contorted...

Here, you're proving why a Mamiya 7II is not good enough as it wouldn't focus that close.

BTW, have you tried you printing a larger B&W negative on transparent film from a scanned file and then use that for a silver gelatin contact print?

Asher

No, I have not tried this (nor could I , I don't have a decent inkjet printer). There is, however, absolutely no way that a second-generation gelatin print that has run through an inkjet could be as good as a first-generation gelatin print directly from the negative. In my humble opinion, this crazy trend was started by digital photographers who wanted to make real silver prints, and did not have an enlarger, or as an easy means to try some alternative (contact printing) processes.

Now, the second reason is compelling to me (I have never tried gel/salt/platinum/etc printing), but I would again rather do this in the darkroom, i.e. in my enlarger, expose a piece of sheet film with my negative (that's one of the purposes of Ilford Line film, though I'm not wasting my precious last box of it in this manner), and then contact print from there.

Analog all the way, baby!

 

[Dawid Loubser]

A recent street/architecture snapshot with my RB67 and 50mm lens. I am surprised every time that my cheapest gear (and the very first film camera I ever bought) produces hand-held results far superiour to anything possible with my sometimes exotic/expensive 35mm gear "made for hand-holding". There really is no better bang for one's buck than an old medium format camera, and the Sekor wide-angle lenses are really extremely good - they continue to delight.

(RB67, Sekor-C 50mm f/4.5, Ilford HP5+ film (6x7cm))​

What do you guys think of this snapshot? I feel that the perspective distortion adds to this particular shot (shape of the building, shape of the small upright car) etc.

 

[Asher Kelman]

A recent street/architecture snapshot with my RB67 and 50mm lens. I am surprised every time that my cheapest gear (and the very first film camera I ever bought) produces hand-held results far superiour to anything possible with my sometimes exotic/expensive 35mm gear "made for hand-holding". There really is no better bang for one's buck than an old medium format camera, and the Sekor wide-angle lenses are really extremely good - they continue to delight.

(RB67, Sekor-C 50mm f/4.5, Ilford HP5+ film (6x7cm))​

What do you guys think of this snapshot? I feel that the perspective distortion adds to this particular shot (shape of the building, shape of the small upright car) etc.

Dawid,

Try correcting it and even perhaps just the sides not the central building!

Then we can see!

Asher

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Hmm, I see what you're doing Asher - it's quite curious. You are taking a scientific approach to artistic merit, by wanting to visually compare the work to ones in which alternative options have been explored.

Hmm... I might just bite, although, since I print in analogue, I cannot reasonably correct in anyway - the scope for perspective correction is not that much in optical printing!

Let me think about correcting this one as an experiment...

 

[Jerome Marot]

the scope for perspective correction is not that much in optical printing!

It was a long time since I last used an enlarger, but I seem to recall one can correct perspective in prints. Scheimpflug rule works just as well with an enlarger than with a view camera.

 

[Dawid Loubser]

It was a long time since I last used an enlarger, but I seem to recall one can correct perspective in prints. Scheimpflug rule works just as well with an enlarger than with a view camera.

That is true yes, but only to a very limited extent, since one is projecting a flat negative onto a flat piece of paper. Tilting one of the two mean you have to stop the lens right down (diffraction...), and even then, there is only enough depth of field for a small degree of correction.

I myself have never seen a high-quality print that has been perspective-corrected in the enlarger, but would stand to be corrected if somebody has an example?

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

It was a long time since I last used an enlarger, but I seem to recall one can correct perspective in prints. Scheimpflug rule works just as well with an enlarger than with a view camera.

Hi Jerome,

That's correct. One needs to tilt the enlarger head + film carrier, keep the lens pointing down vertical, and then tilt the paper surface in the opposite angle to the enlarger head. When the three film/optical/paper planes intersect in the same line, focus is according to the Scheimpflug principle.

I don't have examples laying around, but 've done it in the darkroom I had in the 70's, for the purpose of perspective control.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Jerome Marot]

Tilting one of the two mean you have to stop the lens right down (diffraction...)

Not if you can tilt the film, paper AND lens according to the Scheimpflug principle as Bart has explained.

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Not if you can tilt the film, paper AND lens according to the Scheimpflug principle as Bart has explained.

That is very true yes (my bad) - but I am talking from a practical perspective here. Very few enlargers have this capability - I have an Omega D5XL (a high-end enlarger) but even it cannot do this. It wouldn't surprise me if they made accessories for it in this regard, but I have never seen mention of them.

Would certainly be fun to try one day however, but I suspect I would still much prefer perspective correction in-camera instead of during printing...

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Four recent scans

Probably the most satisfying aspect of medium format monochrome film is that of printing and scanning negatives you took three years ago. Images patiently lying and waiting in the file can finally come to life!

Surface

(Ilford FP4+, RB67, Sekor-C 65mm @ f/4.5 - Dana Bay, Western Cape, ZA)

Groot Brak River "Island"

(Ilford FP4+, RB67, Sekor-C 65mm @ f/4.5 - Groot Brak River, Western Cape, ZA)

Giant Pointing Fingers

What have you done??
(Ilford FP4+, RB67, Sekor-C 140mm @ f/4.5 - Groot Brak River, Western Cape, ZA)

Random Tree No. 611

(Ilford FP4+, RB67, Sekor-C 50mm @ f/11 - Stillbaai, Western Cape, ZA)
​

The Sekor-C 65mm lens (I have an really beat-up copy, the front element has severe scratches in it) is absolutely delicious. The first two images were shot wide open with it. Spectacular contrast and flare-resistance, and the shallow depth-of-field rendering makes me smile. The focal length and DOF is fairly similar to a 35mm f/2.0 lens on 35mm, but a Summicron ASPH can eat its heart out.

I have hundreds and hundreds of my own 6x7cm images I have not seen yet - I absolutely can't wait...!

 

[Jason Asher]

Hi guys, some great images in here. As you've probably guessed I'm new here, I found this site via google results for this specific thread when I was researching my RB67 purchase. Just received the cam a week ago and loving it, got some decent results already.

I actually had a technical question regarding the RB system, so I thought this would be an ideal place to ask rather than to start a new thread. Basically I'm still a little confused as to the floating elements, having not used them before. Most of the images I'm likely to produce with this camera will be landscape images at infinity, often long exposures. It seems infinity focus is attained by not extending the bellows at all which is rather convenient. I was wondering if anyone could give me any tips with the floating element for this style of work? My lens of choice is the 50mm so shooting very wide. I suspect the closest that part of my foreground subject matter would get to the film plane would be about 2 meters. Do I need to set the floating element to the hyperfocal distance or is it not necessary if always focussed at infinity and using small apertures?

Many thanks for reading and your help. Looks like a great forum here!

 

[Mike Shimwell]

JAson, welcome.

Dawid will be your helper on this as he is using the RB67 regularly (or was at any rate). He drops in from time to time, so wait patiently and you will receive some help.

Meanwhile, look around elsewhere on the board too.

Mike

 

[Jason Asher]

Thanks for the welcome Mike! I'll look forward to hearing from David. I'm just doing a couple of scans now and they pretty sharp to me, but if there's extra sharpness to be had no one is going to refuse that!

 

[Jerome Marot]

I'm still a little confused as to the floating elements

The floating element ring should be set to your focus distance. It is there to correct the aberrations of the lens which depends from the distance between the lens and the film plane. It is not related to the distance to the subject, hyperfocal, etc... You report what you read on the bellows to the floating element adjustment ring.

Other cameras system also use floating elements, but because the focus helicoid is on the lens, you can have a mechanical junction between focus and the floating element. Not so on the RB67/RZ67, since the focussing system (bellows) is independent from the lens.

 

[Jason Asher]

Ohh of course, not subject distance! I've been looking at this all the wrong way. So according to the bellows graph, when shooting at infinity with the 50mm I'm given what looks like to just be a 1 metre reading from the side, so I should just keep (for when shooting at infinity) the floating elements set to 1m and I should be ok?

Thanks for your help Jerome.

 

[Jerome Marot]

Ohh of course, not subject distance! I've been looking at this all the wrong way. So according to the bellows graph, when shooting at infinity with the 50mm I'm given what looks like to just be a 1 metre reading from the side, so I should just keep (for when shooting at infinity) the floating elements set to 1m and I should be ok?

Not at all. I had to get the RB67 out to understand what you meant, and you are very much confused, I am afraid.

First: if the lens is focussed to infinity, put the floating element to infinity. If it is focussed to 2m, put the floating element to 2m, etc... Very simple.

Second: you see 1m in front of 50mm at infinity, but it has nothing to do with the floating elements. Please extend the belows to the maximum to understand the following explanation: that scale indicates, for each focal length, at which distance you need to open 1 more stop to compensate (grey zone with points) or 2 stops to compensate (hashed zone). It also roughly indicates your present focus distance: junction of the curved line corresponding to the focal length with the vertical distance scale. The curved lines have colors so that you can more easily associate them to their respective focal length. All the curved lines end up at the same point at infinity, roughly next to the figure "360mm".

Third: all lenses have a front ring with an indication of distance and depth of field. On most lenses, this ring has no other function, it is just a calculator and not linked to the optics. Indeed on the 50mm, it also adjusts the floating element.


You can directly download the RB67 pdf manual in English from mamiya Netherlands here.


Quite nice pictures on your site...

 

[Jason Asher]

Thanks Jerome - I understand now. Before shooting my first roll I had done much reading about this and had decided that keeping the floating element at infinity when focusing to infinity was the correct thing to do, but I think in self doubt I started researching again and started finding a lot of contradicting opinions/forum threads about the topic which confused me further.

Thanks for clearing it up for me - glad to know the few rolls I've shot will be as sharp as they can be, and thanks also for your comment about my pictures

 

[Anna Lee]

Today I finaly could really test the Leaf Aptus on the RZ67ProII.
AMAZING camera.
Focussing is a dissaster but a new screen is on order and should arrive in 2 weeks.

Now I have to shoot from tripod.
Here a 100% crop.

It seems the RZ has a more real look to the photos than the 645AFD, mostly possible to a little bit better contrast and better black rendition.
But I would have to dig deeper to make 100% sure, for the moment I prefer the RZ above the 645.

Amazing camera!!!

 

[Jason Asher]

That really is incredible clarity Frank, how dense is the sensor for that back?

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Dear Jason,

Well, it seems your floating-element question has been sufficiently answered! It really is quite simple, you simply set it to the distance that your subject is from the camera, and a vague approximation is more than good enough. Also, not using it is usually also good enough, unless you are shooting a close object wide open, and want a perfectly flat field - a rare requirement.

I just want to add one piece of advice - if you set the floating element, set it before focusing, or always re-focus after setting it - it does ever so slightly change the plane of focus. But for your style of work, just leave it at infinity...

Your work on your website is truly beautiful, your talent combined with the RB67 will be a fine one indeed!

 

[Jerome Marot]

That really is incredible clarity Frank, how dense is the sensor for that back?

The pixels are 6 microns. That is roughly the pixel size of the Pentax 645D, Sony A900 or Nikon D200. Or course, the sensor sizes being different, you end up with 80 (Leaf), 40 (Pentax), 24 (Sony) and 11 (Nikon) MPix.

 

[Jason Asher]

Thanks Dawid, that's how I've been shooting with it so far so I'm glad I'm on the right track. And thanks for your kind words about my website, I'm really hoping the rb can help me develop more as a photographer, and may pave the way for large format eventually. I just couldn't stand the tiny little 35mm negs any longer!

Thanks for the info Jerome, I suppose I should've just calculated it myself. If money permits one day I'd love to get a digital back, the extra few stops of dynamic range would be right up my alley.

 

[Dawid Loubser]

I have long adored shooting Ilford Pan F at ISO32, but only recently started using this film in my RB67. Of course a good tripod is needed, but the results - in the "flesh" (these are scanned analogue prints) - are so good, one has to ask - "who needs large format?" (yeah, yeah, scheimpflug... I know...).

These were taken at Kimberley. The interior is of the very old, and supposedly haunted, Africana library. What a wonderful place it was...

On a technical note, the dynamic range of even Pan F (developed in diluted D76-equivalent developer, 1+1) blows my mind. The skylight at the top left is in full "sunny 16" bright sunlight, whereas the area underneath the tables in the extremely dark library were almost pitch black to the naked eyed (this was a very dark library, and the image is a 4-minute exposure). This is at least 12 stops of range.

It was also an attempt to produce an interesting composition using a full-frame (37mm) fish-eye lens of an angular, architectural subject. I love how much more "natural" fish-eye distortion is than a rectilinear ultra-wide: Jam your nose into the image (or my big print and you don't even notice it. But the big, lovely RB67 finder made it a joy to spend 10 minutes playing with the subject until I was happy. Everything that you can see in the photo? I was in almost every conceivable spot trying to find the "right" angle... Ended up in a very contorted position on a tiny, tiny spiral staircase.

 

[Geoff Goldberg]

David -

Really wonderful shots. I'm not a big fan of fisheyes, but your shot is wonderful. It does all you say, and you don't notice the effect, and the range is about as close to human perception of this kind of space as one could ever find. Congrats, well done.