If you have a larger budged, you can opt for the nicer but more expensive Mamiya/Phase One AF-D lenses. Sticky barrels can be cleaned easily with rubbing alcohol.
People bash the polycarbonate barrels of the old Mamiya AF lenses but they're pretty sturdy and lightweight.
CONTAX 645 FOR SALE MANUAL
Lenses for this system are easy to get, fairly cheap and of good (enough for me) optical quality and improved over the 645 manual focus N lenses. The AF on the Mamiya AFDIII works pretty good, although not great by modern DSLR standards. The Pentax 645N doesn't have interchangeable backs. The Rollei Hy6 is definitely out of my price range. Candidates for me were the Contax 645, the Hasselblad H2, the Mamiya 645AFD/II/III and maybe the Rollei 6008 AF.
Pretty much every manufacturer dropped medium format film back compatibility on the newer cameras many years ago so we're stuck with relative old AF. After much searching and reading on the web, I got the impression that the AFDIII has the best AF of the FILM medium format cameras.
CONTAX 645 FOR SALE PRO
I upgraded recently from the Mamiya 645 Pro to the AFDIII to get autofocus. Further Pentax has been touting a Digital version of the camera, so your investment for these lense can be carried forward into the MF digital application.Click to expand.If autofucus is the main motivation, then you may want to read these old pages: The Pentax 645 system has a good collection of lenses and both body or lenses are currently a bargain on the used market. This battery is a factory service item, so if you need to replace it, the camera must be sent away. There is a back up button cell battery for keeping settings. The camera uses 6 AA batteries for normal operations which I find it to be really convenient. There are 2 tripod mounts one on the bottom and one on the left side of the body. There is a mechanism that allows you to make multiple exposures on the same frame for creative purposes. 120 film yields 15 frames and 220 yields 30. You then unlock the film holder and remove and seal the film. When the last picture is taken, the camera will wind the film into the take up spool. Once the holder is locked, and you press the shutter button, the camera will automatically wind the film to the first position. The film travels vertically instead of side to side. You load and pre-thread the film outside of the camera in the film holder and then insert the film holder into the camera. There are separate film holders for each type of film. It has contacts to support Pentax dedicated flash units in TTL mode. There is no built-in selftimer on this camera.Ī hot shoe for attaching a flash sits on top of the view finder. A stop down lever for viewing DOF is on the right side of the camera body. There is control for +/- exposure compensation. Exposure modes supported are B, M, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority.
CONTAX 645 FOR SALE ISO
On top of the camera body is a cluster of buttons and an LCD display to change and display exposure mode, ISO setting, etc. The focusing screen can be changed for different photographic need. I have a large eye cup on the eye piece and optionally a magnifying eye piece can be attached to it for work requiring more precise focusing.
There is a dioptre adjustment on the eye piece. One corner of the view finder has a red LED display for metering infomation. I find it adequate for my kind of work, which is landscape and nature. The incorporation of the grip handle allows me to hand hold it like an SLR, wh ich I thought was a great advantage over other MF box cameras. It incorporates a built-in grip with shutter release and an On/Off switch. The body is a unique box shape, deeper than wide, unlike SLRs. (The newer 645N even has the auto focus mechanism added to the mount system) It rivals the modern DSLR mounts that have contacts for aperture auto mode. It uses the Pentax 645 lens mount system, which upon my examination, is quite an advance mount. The operation of the camera is excellent too. It is quite heavy (lighter than my 67ii), solid construction and clean lines make the appearance very appealing. The construction of the camera is top notch. Having owned modern digital SLR cameras, going back to this is like re-discovering the good old days.