Mamiya's medium format magic for the Cinephile!
TLS Mamiya 645
This set of 8+ lenses is a very interesting option for us and offers special image making opportunities that are difficult to replicate with most modern glass. The soft gorgeous multi coloured flares of these lenses are fun to work into your images. To understand the potential of the set try the 78mm or the super fast 57mm T1.6 (f1.3) and check out some skin and definitely make them flare!
We always loved the Mamiya system for medium format photography and Mamiya lenses were never quite as brutal as similar Hasselblad (Zeiss) glass so we were really excited to investigate them as an option for cine rehousing.
Mamiya 645 lenses form the basis of one of the sought after but rental only Arri DNA lenses and if you check out Bradford Young’s work on Solo: A Star Wars Story, you can find some clear tell-tale lens flare artefacts that prove this fact. This is not in of itself a reason to rehouse the Mamiyas as Bradford can create extraordinary images with absolutely any glass. So why?
Basically we realised Mamiyas are the only medium format lenses that could tick all the right boxes for us. We wanted a series of lenses that:
Where not quite as funky as our Canon Dream lenses but still offered something far more more vintage than our Arri Signatures.
We wanted a relaxed rendering of detail but still comfortably delivered 8K images.
We wanted a proper set that could potentially run to 12 lenses - from 17mm to 300mm is on the cards!
We wanted beautiful flares that were soft and multi coloured (Purple, Blue, Gold and lime soft flare notes with the odd rainbow!)
Could be flipped back to full Medium format coverage (beyond Imax) if the need ever arrises.
We hand picked our set during the Covid lockdown, so were able to really take this set to the extreme, for example our chosen 32mm lens was the best of 8 lenses tested. Not even Kubrick would be this picky! We nearly gave up early on as we struggled to make a colour matching set. The real issue was that we started the project assuming we would only want the older C series lenses (because they are a little more vintage than the later N lenses) but after extensive testing, we realised that to create a colour matched set which flared more consistently (and beautifully) we had to include a few N series lenses.
We would have to give credit to Daniel Anguiano and his test https://vimeo.com/482769384 because when we nearly gave up we saw his test and it spurned us on to find the best set to rehouse!
How are these lenses different from Mamiya 645 lenses mounted to a Cinema camera with a Mamiya mount?
First of all, like the test above, they are all focal length reduced so they have a flattering fall off on the edges - PLUS you gain a stop of light!
As well as fully stripping and rebuilding with one of the best Cine mechanics in the world, TLS optically tweak the lens to work better as a whole. Not to give away too much of their optical secrets, but they carefully match the position of the original lens existing pupil with the focal length reducer for the longer focal lengths, they even change the iris position to work better for the new lens. They also standardise on a new circular iris for the whole set which helps create a more matched bokeh. If you grab an off the shelf Kipon LPL reducer and put it on any of the faster or longer focal lengths they just don’t work nearly as well as the TLS lenses. They also wouldn’t cover LF or Monstro but the fully rehoused lenses easily do.
We really love these lenses! They are lightweight and smaller than many Cine lenses with their 95mm fronts and the perfect antidote to boring modern lenses and digital cameras with their slightly softer and textured look and gorgeous multi coloured flares.
TLS the rehousing guys www.truelens.co.uk/
more Mamiya info www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/rlMamiyMFSLR.htm