Bob Monaghan wrote:

Hi Gordon, some very interesting comments, thanks ;-)

. . . . . . . . 150mm lens

it isn't just the close focusing issue, which I agree with you can be
achieved by cropping. It is also that 150mm on MF 6x6cm equates to
90-105mm on 35mm SLR, which achieves the classic portraiture perspective;
using a wider lens can work with care, but the "big nose" effect is more
of a problem than with the short telephotos. It isn't just getting closer
to your subject jitters that makes the 150mm the classic MF portrait lens
;-)

Excellent point, and in consideration, then no rangefinder would ever work
for your needs. I think that the magnification, or base length would need to
be quite large, and that would eliminate having a compact camera. I suppose
something like goggles on the lens, or a screw on viewfinder magnifier are
options, though I have doubts that Mamiya or Bronica would ever make these.



I haven't had the $$ either to use/buy the Century Precision adapters for
movie work.

Someone else was paying the bills when I used those. I cannot afford those
either, though while using them, the results were mostly good. One issue with
one of the adapters is that it got loose on the mounting too often (could be
quality control). It would have been expensive to drop one.

The high cost of good examples like the Zeiss Mutars were what
led me to suggest that interchangeable lens front elements could be used
with very good results, sort of like interchanging filters, but with
thicker elements for the wide and telephoto variants. As we noted, this
was done in the past with Kodak Retina and Contaflex, and with modern
designs should be do-able again today ;-)

Though so far it seems that only a few large format lenses have
interchangeable elements.



the final reason why this hasn't been done is that too many folks are
happy with the existing offerings, esp. of low cost folders (ikonta/moskva
clones..) or rangefinders such as Mamiya 7/6 and bronica rf645. I also
think the bronica RF should have done better, and if they had opted to
tweak the bodies to match the 135mm lenses, it would have been sold as a
plus factor rather than the recall approach they took, leaving us without
a longer lens than 100mm ;-( Cropping from 6x7 and 6x9cm is pretty
forgiving, as you noted, so that can cover some of the tasks.

Agreed, and I think what some UK Bronica places did by offering adjusting to
match the 135 mm was a good solution. Unfortunately, Bronica did not follow
that idea in any other markets, though they did provide a conversion to match
the newer 100 mm. I wonder if the current cameras are still being produced,
or if they are just selling off an initial manufacturing run. If the latter,
then would they continue making the RF645?



So I should probably look for a better afocal telephoto adapter of 3X or
4X range for those admittedly infrequent shots (in which these telephoto
adapters incorporate a focusing setup, so what you see in focus thru the
adapter is what you get on the film ;-)

Or just two cameras. A small rangefinder for wide to normal (or short tele),
and an SLR for normal to tele. I don't think that is too much to carry,
perhaps with four lenses. Having used rangefinder cameras of various film
formats and sizes, I find that I usually want normal to short tele lenses for
these, so I guess my needs could be met by current offerings.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com