Scott Loveless writes... > Hey, gang. I'm contemplating a "portrait" lens for the 645.
If you don't mind being silly, there is a non-Pentax option that is interesting and inexpensive. For many years, Carl Zeiss Jena built a variation of the famed Olympia Sonnar for the Pentacon Six mount. It is the MC Sonnar 180mm/f2.8. The lens is a classic Sonnar design with the enormously thick center elements, which means it's a bit heavy. The rendering of this lens has a real old-world look, and the bokeh is truly world-class. The lens works best for portraiture wide open to get the narrow depth of field, and it is quite sharp at all apertures. The later multicoated version has a black body and an external slide switch that allows manual aperture control. The 86mm filter ring can be accommodated by the old Hassy Pro-93 compendium shade, but it also comes with a reasonable screw-in plastic shade. They typically cost under $300 on ebay, though I haven't tracked them in a while. There is also a 300mm f/4 version that may be even better. The adapter to mount Pentacon Six lenses on a 645 is made by DVDTechnik and is also available on ebay, usually for under $40. It does not provide aperture coupling, but if you are using it wide open anyway it does not matter. The adapter has no optical elements and retains infinity focus. The focus confirmation light on the 645n and nII will still work fine, as will automatic metering in aperture-priority mode. Like I said, it's a silly suggestion, but if you are looking for something a bit different that is optimized for portraiture, it might suit you. Rick "for whom this is the standard portrait lens" Denney --- 645 and 6x7 user -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
