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Holy flick... the Pentax 67 M* 300mm f 4 ED (IF) from Japan, arrives already on Monday here in Stockholm to my door. It is delivered through FedEx. I had no idea the seller would choose such a fast road. WOW ! The good thing with FedEx is, that they send the bill for tax and import days later. There is no delay through custom... This changes of course my previous bickering revolving "service" and "Swedish customs".
Wow... Monday already.
Who would have thought. I expected it to take 2-3 weeks or so. Not that it truly matters, if it comes in 4 days or a couple weeks. I am pretty used to wait and generated a thick tolerance - and we are approaching winter - which means it isn't exactly outdoor telephoto times. Or maybe it is ? Does weather truly matter when it comes to photography ? Surely not, or i shouldn't. But my thinking was that it was a bigger lens, and you normally don't go out that often with big guns. But I am glad it is a lens not that much bigger than the older Pentax 6x7 Takumar 300mm f 4 - which is really manageable ! So, it ain't a monster lens, and therefore more to easy.
The Big Waiting Game
Some things, I have to wait for quite a long time.
For example the SmallRig rotating (Fuji GFX) mounting adapter - which let's you rotate the camera between horizontal vs vertical imagery without having to take away the camera from the tripod - and likely arrives in the beginning of December (after it has been promised to be shipped after 10 October 2023).
So, that is a huge delay.
Either because of production issues, or because the adapter is super popular (given that there are many serious Fujifilm GFX medium format photographers out there, i wouldn't be surprised. This adapter is truly unique in what it does ! I would understand that the pre-orders exceeded expectations. Plus, the price is more than fair at around €88 with tax included. But it appears that nobody got the adapter yet - so it might be a production issue, after all.
Well, well. I better get prepped. Prepared to head out and take some nice moderate telephoto images, together with the rotating Vertex adapter and the Pentax SMC M* 300/4 ED (IF) lens adapter. It will result into a moderate telephoto perspective, around 160 mm.
Big lenses - twice the view
That's the thing when you work with big lenses for 6x7 cameras. The numbers are much bigger (and the lenses) but the VIEW of the lenses is twice as wide - due to the large image circle these 6x7 lenses have. So, a 300mm lens isn't as impressive in the view... because it corresponds to a 165 mm telephoto view. Which is pretty moderate, when you think about it.
It is the longest lens in my Pentax 67 camera system. On the Mamiya RZ67, the longest i lens i have is the Sekor-Z 360 mm f 6.0 lens (the simpler version, not the APO version). That corresponds to something like 180 mm I believe. However, since those lenses do not focus at all - you can't use them with a Vertex adapter (there is none).
There is a Hartblei Mamiya RZ67 shift adapter
from Ukraine with built-in focus helicoid
allowing all Mamiya Sekor Z lenses to be focused infinity - but it costs around 16000 SEK / 1300 €. And the whole set is HUGE ! The Vertex adapter is lean in comparison. The Hartblei rotating shift adapter is absolutely huge (which is required when you handle even bigger Mamiya RZ67 lenses)
With the adapter you can: use the native Fuji GFX sensor size of 33x44 mm for these lenses, either in normal mode, or in shifted mode. The camera acts like a 1.8x (?) crop factor camera compared to what the Mamiya RZ67 lenses can really cover.
You could in theory make wider images - still
because the shift adapter allows 'displaced' images in all directions 360°. You would have to shift the lens, then rotate it, and take each time a photo... I don't know 8-10 images - and then put them all together in post processing. That would result into a natural, larger image equivalent as if you had a larger sensor, too.
Here is an illustration
coming from The-Digital-Picture.com - with example of the Canon TS-E 17mm f 4 L Tilt-Shift lens for Canon EOS and Canon R cameras (with EF-RF adapter).
You can do the same on a fullframe camera, using for example the Canon TSE 17mm f 4 lens. You shift the lens to the side into all directions, take photos and rotate the lens and then stitch them together. But it isn't as elegant like the Vertex + Pentax 67 lenses method !!
In the first photo you see how a 17 mm ultra wide angle lens renders the center of the image (equivalent to fullframe sensor aka 24x36mm sensor)
But when you take several photos, each one shifted to the borders into all directions - and then add them together in post processing - you use the larger image circle of this lens, creating a much wider perspective (as if you had a larger sensor). It would in fact look more like a 6x7 type of image - albeit it don't think it covers it fully.
Let's see.. how far can the Canon TSE 17 mm shift ? 12 mm perhaps ? So, 36+12+12 = 58 mm "sensor" horizontally. And vertically it is 24+12+12 = 48mm.
Like a sensor of 48x58 mm.
But parts of the corners will be missing as they are not covered in the example above. So, overall the surface turns out less of course. Perhaps more like 40x50 mm sensor equivalent. Well, something like that. Clearly larger than fullframe, and slightly larger than the native Fujifilm GFX 33x44 mm sensor.
So, this you could do with the Hartblei Mamiya RZ67 shift adapter, too (I do not know how much it allows to shift with Sekor Z lenses) - but you can with the same principle create a wider field of view, closer to the real image circle of a Mamiya RZ67 Sekor Z lens.
Quite a bit fiddlier and bulkier than the Vertex method, though !
True 6x7 digital format !!!
That's why I went the Pentax 6x7 route: Because here the rotating Vertex adapter existed for it - and truly utilizes the entire image circle of the 6x7 lenses. Not to mention the EASE of that adapter is astonishing. You only take 4 images, in which you rotate the camera in 4 different positions (the adapter has slight clicks in each of the 90, 180, 270 and 360 degree positions - so, you will not miss it.
It that incredibly easy.
NO CROP FACTOR what so ever !
It's the real 6x7 deal.
Boy, do I babble and babble about this.
Where is that energy coming from ?! Is it passion ? Is it obsession ? Is it trapped energy ? Is it a replacement for something else ?
I honestly don't know.
I know however, that once I am into something - i am 500% at it (give or take it with some breaks in between). I've always been deeply passionate about most things i come across, things that touch me from within.
It's a Ralf thing !!
Perry would say; You're crazy / He is crazy - while rolling his eyes.
I even remember exactly where and when he once said it (albeit in a sense of a joke, while we just had eaten in a Asian restaurant and got a bit over-fed), while i was fiddling with the camera and did crazy/funny things - and Perry just looked at me with an amused look, kind of shaking his head. I think i even have that snippet recorded somewhere...
The memories, or better said, the real life imprints from the people I was living with, always resides within me, even today, as if no time has passed. These "psychological imprints", have all their individual responses, almost as if the people behind, are alive. As if meeting them face to face - without any time lost.
I can picture my grandmother reacting to something I say or do. Or former boyfriends. I can see they eyes, the nuances, the reactions, the laughing, or serious or even angry eyes, the voices, the many different details in their setting and way to behave and act. It is a dynamic which isn't tied to old memories, but can "react" even to things I do say or think of today... and they "respond" in "their individual manner" as if it was today.
And usually - when you really pay attention, and sometimes have the chance to meet the same people later in life - you'll see, not much has changed. They are in the core, the same (in this life). However, I do notice sometimes, that their "light" is less. Like a sort of dullness in people over greater time. Also they sexuality glow (from within) has a lower, more subdued radiation. Maybe age has made them... less... vivid. Less spontaneous. Less... present ? And a lot of water has passed under the bridge along the road of time, their bodies, they feelings, their own feel about age and body ?
I don't know. |
