My first chance to shoot with the Mamiya 645 on the road came a few weeks ago in the form of a local fair in the neighboring town of Kingston called ‘Kingston Days’. Quite a creative name, I know. I spent several hours there over two days with the Mamiya.
The first day there was truly the first time I shot with the Mamiya so I loaded up my photo backpack and set out. As a part of my ‘process’ for always trying to reduce the amount of gear I own, I constantly try to evaluate which items I use and which I don’t. Curiously though even before I left the house I traded my largest lens, the 210 F/4, for a second bottle of water in my photo backpack. That lens may not have a home in my kit for long. Considering I brought and never used the 150mm lens an even longer one may not prove useful to me.
Once I arrived at the fair I put on the backpack with the Mamiya in it and grabbed a 35mm camera to hold. I chose my Nikon N80 and a single lens, the 24-50mm. It’s a lightweight and reliable kit that could easily fit in the void created by the Mamiya when/if I chose to use it. I locked up my car and started walking toward the fair. The backpack felt quite light as I started out and perused the various vendors at the flea market. I snapped a number of shots with my N80 and made my way through the bulk of the fair. During this first hour or so I was never thinking about the weight of the pack but the wet patch on my back did catch my attention once or twice. It’s the price you pay for carrying a black backpack in August.
As I reached the far endit of the fair I met up with a photography friend and made the swap from N80 to the Mamiya, loading in a roll of Kodak’s Ektar 100 speed film into one of the backs. I then did something else I wasn’t expecting. I left the backpack in a safe place and went for a walk with just the Mamiya 645, setup with the 45mm lens and the auto-exposure prism mounted on top. I found this experience to be unpleasant. The bulk of the camera wasn’t too bad to carry but based on the placement of the camera strap mounts on the body the camera doesn’t hang easily like a 35mm camera would when you hold just the strap. I found myself carrying it more like a infant than a camera which really hurt my mobility. I also felt like I was flaunting the device, which was not my intention. I did made a few shots which I am happy with but this is not a configuration I would use again. Holding the camera up to my eye and looking around in that massive viewfinder working to frame the shots and balance the beast left a lot to be desired.
I made my way back to the camera bag, packed up and went home for the evening. I was aware that I wasn’t really happy with how my day with the Mamiya went, but didn’t really have any thoughts on what I might do differently. Mostly, I was tired from spending a day in the sun.
The next day, with the weather reporting temps in the mid-eighties, I loaded up again with my sights set on shooting that afternoon’s car show at the fair. During the drive over to the fair I tried to think about how best to shoot and manage the bulk. When I arrived I wasn’t too keen on putting on the backpack again. After all, I knew what subject matter I was after and how I wanted to shoot. I left the 45mm lens on the camera and swapped for the waist level finder. I knew I needed to boost the stability of the setup when shooting but I was not excited about carrying a tripod. Thankfully, my monopod was in the back of my car. (Truth be told, I keep both the monopod and the tripod in my car at all times. You never know when you’ll need them.)
I screwed the monopod onto the camera, put my waistlevel finder in my pocket along with a second roll of Ektar 100 film and set off. Tricky thing for me was I don’t have a standalone light meter to figure out my exposure. Since I opted to not carry another camera, I had to use my auto-exposure (AE) finder to sort out the exposure and then swap to the waist level to compose. I could have used the AE finder to do both but, frankly, I wanted to try out the waistlevel. Perhaps surprisingly, I found this arrangement quite pleasant.
The obviously flaw in this setup was the need to swap back and forth between the AE prism and the waistlevel finder. I have since purchased a small light meter that mounts onto the Mamiya so I can avoid all of those swaps. I chose the ‘Voigtlander VC Meter II’ which can be had for about $200. I like it because it’s very small and fits into the shoe on most cameras, that little bracket where people often attach a flash. The Mamiya has a shoe on the left side so attaching and carrying the meter is convenient. The only limitation I can see so far is that the light meter views the world via a certain field of view. It doesn’t view the world through the lens I have mounted on the camera. I have found the exposure values it gives me are great for my wide-angle 45mm lens and the normal 80mm lens, but can be a little off when using the 150mm or the 210mm lens. Their field of view is much narrower than the meter so that’s affecting it’s accuracy. In situations where I would be using those longer lenses though I would expect to be using the camera on a tripod and using the AE finder would likely be more agreeable.
Having the camera on the monopod offered a lot of flexibility when framing the shots. It’s very simple to move the camera around but stable enough to allow me to focus on the details. Being able to raise and lower it very quickly is also very convenient. Vacation is looming so we’ll see how this setup treats me after a hike or two but so far I’m confident I’ll be able to comfortably work with the Mamiya. Perhaps those telephoto lenses are going to be sold off quicker then I thought…
Topslakr