Mamiya DM28 test run with lots of comments, pics

A whole lotta snapshots from around my neighborhood and a portrait of a Madison designer, Sarah Congdon. Mike Crivello Cameras set me up with this demo–the Mamiya 645AFD III, DM28 digital back, 55mm, 80mm, and 150mm. My biggest complaint is that I didn’t have enough time with it! What gorgeous files this camera produced!

Specific comments re: the Mamiya DM28…

The camera was great to work with. Though larger even than my Leica R8+DMR, it still felt good in my hand and wasn’t hard to hold.
Because it has been sometime since I used medium format, the shallow depth-of-field produced by medium format took some reacquainting. I love the shallow depth-of-field, but needed to stop down more than I normally do in order to get the depth-of-field I normally prefer. So where I might normally used f2.8-f4 on my 35mm DSLR, here I was having to got to f5.6-f11.
The viewing screen on the back of the camera is mostly useless, or at least it was to me. I really didn’t use it to review images because it just didn’t look good.
The viewing screen was good though for going through the menu system, which was nicely laid out. Using a touch screen on a camera was pretty neat too, and the screen was quite responsive, whether I used my fingers or the supplied stylus.
As for the camera itself, I was a little confused at one point because I could not find the control to change the aperture when in Manual mode! This was pretty disappointing.
I primarily used the camera in Aperture Priority and the meter seemed pretty accurate.
My biggest frustration had little to do with the camera and more to do with the software/file compatibility. Since my MacG5 desktop computer runs on a Power PC processor yet, I could not access the RAW files. Since I didn’t have the current version of Phase One Capture (only usable on Intel processor Macs), I couldn’t process the files, even if I had the right processor. I had to load the files on my Intel processor MacBook with a downloaded current version of Phase One Capture. The files are HUGE and I could only use Phase One Capture with no other apps running, that’s how much RAM it was chewing up.
Aside from my computer issues, it was real fun working with this camera–the lenses were great, the limited depth-of-field was lovely and it really made me long to be using medium format again. As much as I enjoy my Leica R8+DMR, it’s not medium format.
The autofocus was about as fast as I expected—not fast, but not too horrible. I really wish Mamiya would come up with a focusing screen more suited to manual focus, because the standard screen is NOT.
All in all, I had a great time with this system and would definitely rent it for the appropriate assignment.

The 55mm lens was the one I used most—very versatile.
Very much liked the shallow depth-of-field on the 80mm.
Liked the 150mm lens, but wish it had a shorter close focus distance.
All lenses seemed pretty resistant to flare.
ISO 50 was spectacular, ISO 800 seemed pretty noisy, but I don’t know how it compares to other medium format systems