DSLR / Digital Mamiya

To really test out the advantages of the digital medium format camera, me and two other students decided to try to take the exact same shot with both the Mamiya and a Canon 5D mk II.
We wanted to use the lens lengths that were considered the standard lens for each camera, so we set the lens length to 50mm  on the canon and 150mm on the mamiya. This resulted in the mamiya appearing far closer to the subject.

We took the images on a tripod so any movement was kept to a minimum. To make the test equal, we also set the cameras at the same settings. We chose an ISO of 200, an aperture of f11 and as the light meter suggested, a shutter speed of 1/3. We used the canon first and all of these settings worked fine, yet when we did this with the Mamiya it was far too over exposed. We then changed the shutter speed to 1/60sec. 

Mamiya / Phase One back

Canon 5D mk II

When comparing the images, the mamiya clearly has very different tones to the Canon. The trees appear purple and the greens have a very blue tone. The Canon on the other hand has a very true to the eye tonal range. The colours are very similar to what we saw and true to real life. 

This is very evident when comparing colour swatches from the exact same places from the images.

Colours, aside, i tried to fix them both and make them equal. I went for a very overall green tone, with the greens having a touch of blue in them. This moved away from the true to life tones the Canon gave me but nonetheless they are toned very similarly for comparison.

Mamiya Image Edited

Canon image cropped and edited

With the images this close up it's also easy to tell the differences in focus. For each photo we focussed on the bench, yet the Mamiya leaves the background more out of  focus than the Canon by a long way, despite them both being at F11. This is perhaps due to the lens differences.

While the images still aren't the exact same colour-wise, having them similar helps understand the other differences between the two.

With the canon, I feel that you can see more texture in the bench than within the Mamiya, which is surprising because the Mamiya is supposed to have a better sensor.

Key Specs of Mamiya;

• fastest shutter speed = 1/4000 of a second 
• slowest shutter speed = 30secs
• shutter synchronises for flash at 1/125 second
• 31.6 mega pixels
• iso 100-1600
• sensor size = 33.1mm x 44.2 mm

Key Specs of Canon;

• fastest shutter speed = 1/8000 of a second
• slowest shutter speed = 30 secs
• 21.1 mega pixels
• iso 100-6400
• sensor size = 36 × 24 mm

Overall, both images are good and both cameras take decent photos. The newer sensor in the Canon seems to be best at replicating real life colours, however if you use the Mamiya this can be corrected in post production.

The Mamiya does have a larger sensor meaning when you enlarge these images bigger the images from this camera should have a better resolution.

The lenses also made a difference, for example in the image taken by the Canon we can see some chromatic abrasion in the corners of the image. This is perhaps because of the lens quality and not due to the camera itself.

Chromatic abrasion can also be fixed in post production however it's more difficult to fix than the colour tones.

In terms of cost, the Mamiya will se you back far more than the Canon, even with both second hand. This is because of the sensor size and build quality. The lenses are also more expensive for the medium format cameras than the DSLR lenses which you can get reasonably cheap. They can be expensive but if you're willing to sacrifice some quality, the lenses can be picked up for a good price in comparison to the mamiya.