Paul Jones said: Probaly a Mamiya 7/7II.
"I've used the 65 and 80mm lenses and they were both excellent, pretty
resistent to flare and really sharp corner to corner. I'm not sure wether it would be that great for Street photography, the mamiya is not particually fast to focus and the limited depth of field on 6x7 doesnt help.
The build quality of the body is a bit dubious (plastic and not that
sturdy), but it is really light, the lenses dont have have click stops on the aperture and the meter is not ttl...."
These are interesting comments, and they're contrary to most of my experience with the Mamiya 7 & 7II. I've been using these cameras (I have 4.) for five years, and I can focus them rapidly, for their viewfinder and rangefinder are brighter than the Leica M6. Fast film is a way to overcome the 6x7's lenses' lack of depth of field, and with the 6x7 film image one doesn't have to be as concerned about image quality loss as using 35mm film. The lenses are slow - the fastest aperture is f/4, but my-oh-my are the Mamiya lenses razor sharp. The 43mm, 150mm and the 210mm are INCREDIBLE! They have an extremely smooth and extended quality with the gray-scale and color hues that is very similar to the Leitz lenses - in comparison Pentax lenses never seem to have the same quantity of grays or hues. There was talk on the List recently about lens distortion; well, one has to experience the Mamiya lenses to realize what lack of distortion is. The 43 is a TRUE biogon design wide-angle, not a retro focus telephoto, and the 150 is a true apochromat that's as sharp if not sharper as any red dot Artar copy lens - color SINGS off of this lens for fabulous prints. I shared Paul's concern when I first got my Mamiyas about the body's build quality, but one of my bodies has had over 4,000 rolls through it, and it still works like new. Two of my other bodies have exposed over a thousand rolls each, and the fourth body is still young at about hundred rolls. There has never been any problem with the bodies or lenses. (Knock on wood.) The lenses DO have detants at each f/stop. There are no half-stop detants though. The meter is excellent (reliable, consistent, accurate, and fast), but it is more of a spot meter than a center-weighted meter that Mamiya proclaims. One of the reasons I love my Pentaxes is that they have MUCHO better ergomics for me than any other 35mm camera. The Mamiya 7 and 7II have wonderful ergonomics for my hands and face also. It is so easy to use this camera whether one is a deliberate plugger in the style of E. Weston or a rapid street shooter as Winograd. I sold all of my small and large Sinars except one 4x5 because the 4x5 image quality IS NOT PRACTICALLY superior to the Mamiyas and Velvia or TMax 100 no matter what anyone might say. Additionally, my Mamiya kit is lighter and smaller than my Pentax kit which is truly helpful for an aging back and shoulders. A large drawback is one can only get 10 shots from a roll of 120, so it seems like I'm always changing film - that's a reason I always carry never less than two identical loaded and lensed Mamiyas. (I don't have duplicates of every Mamiya lens just the 43 and 80mm.) (The 220 films give up 20 shots for 6x7, but alas, 220 doesn't come in the film types I use.) I could go on and on about the Mamiya lenses, for they are certainly in a category by themselves, but I'll curb my enthusiasm (I'm not a Mamiya rep., just 7/7II user.) due to respecting that this is a Pentax list....
Hope this info is helpful.
