APS-C 60mm or 100mm macro lens?

[danski0224]

Danski: Interesting! Does the Mamiya lens have auto-aperture on a Canon body, or do you have to use working aperture with dark view finder? Working aperture is OK for tripod work, but is a non-starter for hand-held. I had a Zeiss MP 100 C/Y (going to 1:1), but replaced it with the ZE version for automatic aperture, which is critical for me. Overall, I'd prefer a lens that goes straight to 1:1, so now have to use extension tubes. The f/2 of the MP ZE is not that useful; I hardly ever shoot that open.

I somewhat doubt that a Mamyia lens on a Canon body will have auto-aperture. There are also Zeiss 100 mm C/Y lenses on the market, and those are also about half of a new ZE, and I bet they are smaller/lighter, if you are willing to accept working aperture plus adapter.

Not sure I agree with your vignetting point. It is reduced by closing aperture, so an f/4 lens will have less wide open compared to a f/2 all open of same collecting angle or focal length. The vignetting/light fall-off/relative illuminance[Zeiss term on their datasheets] of an f/2 lens at f/4 will the very similar to a f/4 lens at f/4 of same focal length. [that's the reason you use center filters on LF WA, and those are usually optimized for an intermediate apertures]. The 20 mm more on the Mamyia will reduce it by a hair, but once you close f-stop to f/8 or more, as is common in macro, you won't notice any difference any more.

Zeidora-

The Mamiya 120 "A" is 100% manual on a Canon camera.

I have used it mostly in live view. I now have a Fotodiox adapter with focus confirmation, so that should help with eyeballing things.

The focus throw is quite generous and I have found it relatively easy to dial in through the viewfinder.

The Mamiya lens is made for medium format, so it has a larger image circle than a 35mm lens, with the possible exception of the Canon tilt-shift lenses. Any viginetting apparent on the 645 camera should be mostly cut off on a 35mm sensor.

There are numerous anecdotes about "medium format lens rendering" compared to "35mm format lens rendering". This Mamiya 120 lens has very good reviews/feedback wherever you choose to search about it.

The price is quite reasonable, depending on how long you want to look for one.

I suppose that the one drawback is the lack of a tripod collar. Some have used 3rd party collars and spacers (tape) to take up the slack.