Mamiya RB67 (and the MF rite of passage)

[Jerome Marot]

But of course! The leaf shutter on these cameras indeed has 5 blades:

(and is entirely mechanical, BTW. The camera does not even have a battery.)

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Right you are! (thanks for the magnification, Bart)

This is indeed caused by the 5-bladed mechanical leaf shutter. I think that it is either a similar effect to when you take a photograph of extremely sparkly water with your DSLR, only to see subtly vertical "smears" on each sparkle (light reflecting off the blades).

Then again, this is a very old, unserviced lens, and it could be that the blades move too slow when they are almost closed. Interestingly, uneven shutter mechanics don't cause any problems with uneven exposure of the photo like they do with a focal-plane shutter - it will only show up in the out-of-focus areas.

I've only seen the effect in maybe 2 of my photos in all these years with this camera - only in extremely bright out-of-focus points of light.

I love how the mechanical curiosities of these beasts contribute to the final photograph. Something that is lost in the electronic-shuttered digitial perfection of tomorrow.

 

[Theodoros Fotometria]

I agree, Theodoros. Even the 50mm f/4.5C lens - a 23mm-equivalent wide angle - has such smooth, gentle out-of-focus rendition that adds depth to any image.

Anyway - about half of the images I've posted here were darkroom prints on 8x10 or 11x14 paper, scanned with an Epson V700. The other half were scanned directly using that same scanner.

I started out using VueScan, and post-processing in Apple Aperture - until I switched fully to GNU Linux and open-source software, where I use xSane to scan, and Darktable to post-process.

I think that these negs will benefit if they are scanned in other than flatbed scanner… the reason is D-max on flatbed scanners is too low…. I strongly recommend Nikon's ED 9000, it has a D-max of 4.9 (impressive) and additionally, one can export the file in raw and have it processed in LR or P1C1 (capture one). If you try this, I recommend to do the scanning in "colour" mode, so that it can benefit from extra filtration when processing the raw… Very good job Dawid, it does worth the best of processing.

 

[John Kossik]

Mamiya RB67
90mm f3.5
Expired (1999) Kodak Vericolor III, 220


First roll ever of medium format film. First ever photos from a medium format camera. Would appreciate comments, suggestion, etc. Really want take advantage of medium format as in the correct conditions I still believe it can give better results than my extensive amount of Nikon lenses and my D300.
A few observations first.
1. Considering that I was using my Nikon FE as the light meter for this first batch of shots the exposures are not that bad. I do notice extreme grain in these shots and I do not know whether this is due to the type of film, the oldness of the film, or the scanning. Since starting to shoot film again for the last 6 months I have always wondered if the grain I am noticing is accentuated by the scanning itself. Perhaps in the "old days" when prints were done optically the grain was less noticeable?
2. Surprisingly when viewed at 100% the images are sharper than I thought they would be. At normal size though it seems that the excessive grain distracts the eye from the sharpness.
3. Perhaps it is really not fair to compare analogue images and digital images on a computer screen (or from a print of an analogue image from a scanned negative). After all film was made to be printed optically not scanned into a computer.

That's it any input I would appreciate.

 

[Jerome Marot]

Scanning does indeed accentuate grain compared to optical enlarging. Under-exposing color film and using expired film may do the same. Moreover, we are used to digital images with almost no grain.

You can use noise reduction software on your scans to tame down the grain a bit. In my experience, it gives good results when printing.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Mamiya RB67
90mm f3.5
Expired (1999) Kodak Vericolor III, 220


First roll ever of medium format film. First ever photos from a medium format camera. Would appreciate comments, suggestion, etc.

[/QUOTE]


John,

Bravo for these pictures. It's really wonderful to have these pictures to enjoy. Outdated film just means getting used to it. I hope you have more. There's a slight cyan hue, I think, and in the darkroom you could correct for that. That's where I found darkroom work with color film so daunting under the best of circumstances with fresh film a light meter and strobes of a known color temperature.

Nowadays, at least for color, scanning the film with Vuescan or similar software allows one to correct color in the scanning stage or in Photoshop, GIMP or other software. One can take a pictures of the Gretag Macbeth card, use the software provided by Xrite and get a correction that Adobe camera RAW will apply to a DNG file. This is pretty good as a first step.

As for weak images from old film, one can add a "curves" layer in photoshop and then set that to multiply and reduce the opacity of that layer to somewhere 3-15% to add some more substance and mass to the picture. So I can see very little negative in using these outdated films.

I think there's a lot of joy to be had in these pictures as you bring out the beautiful reflections in the water. I believe that the extra real estate and slower working in MF will give you a lot of pleasure and time for the creative juices to flow in a leisurely and gentlemanly fashion!

Asher

 

[John Kossik]

Asher,

Thanks for the complements though I do not know if I actually deserve them. Using a medium format camera does slow you down, I find it a nice change from digital. I will continue to shot with my RB67 and from time to time post a picture or two here as I would always like comments to improve the images I am trying to capture.

John

 

[Dawid Loubser]

I think that these negs will benefit if they are scanned in other than flatbed scanner… the reason is D-max on flatbed scanners is too low…. I strongly recommend Nikon's ED 9000, it has a D-max of 4.9 (impressive) and additionally, one can export the file in raw and have it processed in LR or P1C1 (capture one). If you try this, I recommend to do the scanning in "colour" mode, so that it can benefit from extra filtration when processing the raw… Very good job Dawid, it does worth the best of processing.

Hi Theodoros,

Thank you very much. I absolutely hate scanning, and only do it when I must. The true representation of my photographs is when I print them in the darkroom. That is where medium (and large-) format shines.

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Moonflower

An image I processed and printed today - the RB67 is still the best camera I own for compositions of this nature:

Moonflower

(Sekor-C 37mm Fisheye, Ilford Delta 100)​

P.S. It's funny how I need to make 5-exposure HDR blends to get this sort of dynamic range with my Olympus Digital, which you get effortlessly with Delta 100. If HDR black and white is your thing, digital still has no solution to what medium- and large format film can do.

 

[Asher Kelman]

An image I processed and printed today - the RB67 is still the best camera I own for compositions of this nature:

Moonflower

(Sekor-C 37mm Fisheye, Ilford Delta 100)​

P.S. It's funny how I need to make 5-exposure HDR blends to get this sort of dynamic range with my Olympus Digital, which you get effortlessly with Delta 100. If HDR black and white is your thing, digital still has no solution to what medium- and large format film can do.

Yes, Dawid,

It's impressive indeed. But what advantages are there over LF? how close do you think you were? Are you using any filters to get the right contrast you need?

Probably you don't have a LF lens that wide!

Asher

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Yes, Dawid,

It's impressive indeed. But what advantages are there over LF? how close do you think you were? Are you using any filters to get the right contrast you need?

Probably you don't have a LF lens that wide!

Asher

Hi Asher,

6x7cm medium format is interesting - it's at least half the quality of 4x5in, for literally 1/10th the amount of effort. For this shot, since I have neither a waist-level viewfinder (extremely awkward camera angle) nor a fisheye lens that covers 4x5in, the Mamiya was the obvious choice.

I think Delta 100 in 6x7cm matches or exceeds HP5 in 4x5in (my usual 4x5in film), but I am going to try some Delta 100 in large format in the coming months (not that I think the Mamiya lenses resolve twice as well as LF, so the quality advantage will have to go to LF).

I never struggle between my RB67 and my Linhof Technika - each are good at certain things, and I rarely make an image with one that I wish were made with the other. My widest LF lens is a 75mm f/8 - not an easy thing to use, unlike the point+shoot Mamiya RB67 experience (by comparison). The 75mm is a heck of a lot better than the (almost equivalent) 50mm f/4.5 Mamiya in terms of distortion etc, and is tiny (49mm filters). The Mamiya has beautiful shallow depth of field though - I love making wide-angle images with shallow depth of field:

Bed of Irises

I also rarely use colour filters to change the contrast (I feel that I have enough control in the printing stage with most images), so no filter was used here either.

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Asher,

It's impressive indeed. But what advantages are there over LF?

Smaller, lighter camera?

Carla: "How did that little Jackie Bouvier ever schlepp that 4x5 Graffie?"

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Dawid Loubser]

Hi, Asher,


Smaller, lighter camera?

Carla: "How did that little Jackie Bouvier ever schlepp that 4x5 Graffie?"

Best regards,

Doug

Ha! My RB67 kit with same number of lenses is larger/heavier than my 4x5 kit! (the RB lenses are large and heavy compared to 4x5 lenses). Of course, ten rolls of 120 film is much smaller than 100 sheet film holders, so it all evens out at a certain point again. But 4x5in is by no means inherently larger than the RB67 beast...

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Dawid,

Ha! My RB67 kit with same number of lenses is larger/heavier than my 4x5 kit! (the RB lenses are large and heavy compared to 4x5 lenses). Of course, ten rolls of 120 film is much smaller than 100 sheet film holders, so it all evens out at a certain point again. But 4x5in is by no means inherently larger than the RB67 beast...

Well, I had no idea!.

Thanks for the insight.

Best regards,

Doug