Bob Monaghan wrote:

from Danny Gonzalez's hands-on reviews of medium format cameras
http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/gindex.html and page go2.html#mamiya6

Disadvantages: (of Mamiya 6 RF)

Very expensive.
Limited close focusing ability (esp. w/ 50 and 150mm lenses).
Lenses aren't fast.
System is limited.
Resale values are low.

Which should imply low cost used . . . . .


Focus is finicky with the 150mm

Apparently the rangefinder base is not enough. Surprisingly, I have heard a
bit of the same complaint about the 150 mm for the Mamiya 7, including a
limited close focus.


Metering with earliest 6 models tends towards underexposure because of
poor in-finder baffling (improved on later production runs and all 6MF's)

=====

the optics, per many users and tests (C. Perez etc.) are very good, but as
usual most RF in MF poop out on close focusing ;-( You can get around it
with fractional diopter + lenses for portraits and wire frame and +4 etc.
magnifier diopters for flower shots, but in a multi-kilobuck system with
high end optics, that rather defeats the purpose of the high $ optics? ;-)

It just really makes me wonder why the things Leica has created for macro,
close focus, and rangefinder magnification have not been adopted by Mamiya,
nor Bronica. In the older rangefinder cameras of the past, like Contax and
Kodak Retina, there were several different solutions for close focus, or
macro imagery. Surely there must be some expired patents that could be
revived.

Ciao!

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