Fri Jan 23, 2004 7:32 am
James, I will answer the specific questions. Otherwise I wil procrastinate and never respond.
Focusing. Except for my XA, which to be honest I never was comfortable focussing, and only really appeciated it when I learned more about depth of field from a series of articles by Alfred Blaker, my experience was almost exlcusively with SLRs. I would say it is much easier to focus the Mamiya 7 than the XA. (In some things, size matters, and the viewfinder in the XA is quite tiny in comparison.) I would say in low light and with the object moving back and forth from the plane, it is not as easy for me to focus as my SLR. I tried to shoot some concerts in clubs with the Mamiya, and have pretty well given up the idea. That said, I have over the past 4 or 5 years, used it to shoot outdoor dance, primarily towards the end of the day, and have been mostly successful.
I have taken it on month long trips to India and Bolivia. I usually travel light and compactly. In India, I had the Mamiya 7 with the 80 and 43 in the "slightly smaller" Domke bag, along with an OM body and 50mm and 85mm OM lenses. I mention this, because it did involve a lot of squeezing and maneuvering -- hardly pampering. It's been in a Toyota landcruiser bumping across the Salar and environs in Bolivia. It is a great travel camera. On one short trip to Mexico, I took the Mamiya with the 80 and my old Contax T2 in a tiny Domke 5xb (probably the wrong number --- a very small "belt" bag, although i used the strap not the belt), and that was a nice kit.
I don't have the auxiliary viewer for the 150mm, and I don't miss it. On the other hand, it is the lens I use least.
I have the 43mm, and yes the viewer is a bit of a pain. It does slow one down. On the other hand, with the depth of field on the 43mm focussing accuracy is not quite as important. I do like the level (although it doesn't seem to work in portrait mode). For panoramics, I prefer the external viewfinder/43mm combination to the 80, in part because of the level, in part because it seems brighter. (When I bought the 43, the 50 was not out yet, and I would lean to the 50 now, if I was faced with that choice; although the 43mm is good for panoramics). As I mentioned, I travel compactly, and the viewfinder is a pain when putting the camera away in my bag, because it usually involves unscrewing it.
Other comments? Well, until the Epson 3200, scanning was a pain, because I can't afford the dedicated slide/negative scanners for MF. And, the camera is very expensive, with no prospects of adaptibility to digital. Tough decision. Maybe buy the mamiya and the 80 and hope that other people will unload their equipment as they switch to digital. Also, as more pros turn from MF to digital, 120, and especially 220 (it's nice to be able to switch without changing backs) will get harder and harder to find.