Re: [Leica] BIG Leica

["4Season" <4Season@boulder.net>]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Ken Wilcox <wilcox@tir.com>
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Date: Sunday, May 16, 1999 10:12 AM
Subject: [Leica] BIG Leica


>After a couple of years of drooling over it, yesterday I purchased a Mamiya
>7 II along with 80mm and 50mm lenses and 35 adapter.
>
Congratulations on your new "baby"! I had a Mamiya 6 and  found the shutter
wonderfully accurate--one of those fancy quartz-timed jobs in which the
timing circuitry is in the camera body, hence, less chance for variation
when switching lenses.

The lenshoods, I could take or leave. I prefer not having to remove  hoods
at all.

I do not know what changes might have taken place in the Mamiya Seven
metering system, but the Six used pretty much the full viewfinder area for
metering, regardless of lens, and this caused some folks to grumble loudly
that the Six was underexposing all of their photos. Not true! They simply
failed to grasp the basic nature of the meter, and were inadvertently
metering a lot more sky than they realized. The trick is to always use the
full viewfinder area for metering the appropriate proportions of earth and
sky, in which case, you can pretty much leave it in auto, using the AE lock,
which works very well. In this sense, the Mamiya Six and Leica M6 are very
different indeed.

You can call Mamiya USA and buy small parts, like caps, pay by credit card,
and wonder of wonders, the prices aren't bad at all. Dealers in my area tend
to drag their feet on the small items, so this can be a nice alternative.

If you want a tripod QR plate, it'll either have to be a custom Arca-Swiss
type unit, or the Perfected Photo Products system, which looks like a
pint-sized Arca (If you want the PPP, let me know--I've got one sitting
around). Most others block the film hubs.

Weak points? Mine was iffy with 220 film, skipping a frame here or there.
And on the Six anyhow, there was a small (RF alignment?) access plug which
might be best lightly(!) cemented into place with Pliobond.

Jeff

PS: Anyone own Fuji's zoom AF 6x4.5??