THERE’S NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO BE A LENS NERD.
A company based in China partnered with an optics company in Germany and opened the door to even more creative lens options. KIPON has made the leap into professional lens adapters and released a new line of optical LPL adapters for medium format lenses. Special thanks to Ivan at Kipon USA for letting us test the new Baveyes Mamiya LPL adapter.
The first thing you’ll notice is the beautiful piece of glass inside. The Bav-eyes is a five element, tele-centric, formula designed by I/BE Optics in Germany. It acts as a “speedbooster” by increasing the field of view of the lens by a factor of 0.7x while gaining one stop of light. This piece of glass is so nice that TLS has chosen it for their Mamiya rehousing service.
The adapter is available for Hasselblad, Pentax, and Mamiya 645 lenses. It is an incredibly solid and well constructed optical adapter. There is no play in the lens or LPL mount. The maximum recommended f-stop for this adapter is F2.8 but even so, there are very few medium format lenses faster than an F2.8.
FIELD OF VIEW
Below you can see the field of view difference while using the adapter. On the right, the adapter increases the field of view of a 35mm effectively making it a 24mm.
Alexa Mini LF 4.5k Open Gate
Canon CN-E 35mm @ T4.0
Alexa Mini LF 4.5k Open Gate
Mamiya Sekor C 35mm @ F4.0
Kipon Baveyes 0.7x Lens Adapter
THE TEST
A LOVELY FORMAT
Shooting on a square-ish format like LF Open Gate brings me right back to the days of high school photography class developing film from my trusty Mamiya 645. This is a lovely way to capture landscapes so I set out on a quick hike around our local lake. Working with the adapter is a painless process. I appreciate the fact that Kipon chose to keep the design simple because it blends right into the camera. The lenses attach firmly and there is no play between the adapter and lens.
MAMIYA SEKOR C
Over the years, i’ve heard numerous rumors about Mamiya lenses being used in rehousing projects. Dan Sasaki apparently rehoused an 80mm f/1.9 for use on a 65mm camera for the Dark Knight. Arri Rental offers the set of Prime 65 S lenses with very similar focal lengths and image characteristics. I am not surprised because the Mamiya Sekor primes resolve extremely well but are inexpensive and readily abundant. The backgrounds are silky smooth for only having 6 iris blades and I suspect they will be even smoother rehoused with an upgraded iris assembly. My favorite characteristic is the subtle swirl around the edges that lead your eye inward. I cannot wait to make some images with people and faces!
CHECK OUT THE TEST VIDEO ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL AND DON’T FORGET TO LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE.
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