This Lens Might Become My Signature Look - Mamiya 65

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]All right, y'all. Here it is. The Mamia 65 65mm T1.7 lens from Kipon in collaboration with Buff Optics. I just received this lens. I purchased it a couple months back. Was afraid of pre-ordering, but I did it anyway cuz I really wanted to keep these lenses in my kit and get a better build because after a while with the STO lenses, they wear down over time. So, this video is just going to be an unboxing, initial first impressions, a little bit of test, and the reason why I want this to be the lens that's going to be my signature look moving forward in my career. Yes, it's very early on to say, but I really do love these lenses. All right, y'all.

[00:00:38]Moment of truth. I've waited a couple months for these. This is something special to me. Many of you all know that I love the uh Mama 645 lenses and so Kipon announced earlier or late last year that they're going to be partnering with Buff Optics to rehouse them with the8 adapter inside. So I purchased two of them and uh they're finally here. So let's get right into this. A lot of this you already seen what these optics look like, but if you haven't, make sure to check out these two videos here. Um, and I'll be doing more follow-up videos about why these are special to me, but I just wanted to get this out cuz I'm very excited for this. All right, so moment of truth. Let's see which one this is.

[00:01:27]I purchased a Hey, that's the 65. The 65 is the 80. Um, let me grab that real quick. So, most of you already know that I'm coming from this lens here. This is the 80. And I've had several different types of Mamia 645 lenses over my time of buying them and reselling them. Um, and so this is the last one, last still version I'm going to ever own. Now, rehhouse, this is fully rehoused. This is not a sleeve. I did not send this lens in to Kipon. They're making them. I believe they have their own optics.

[00:01:57]Obviously, they have their own optics that they're sourcing. Um, and they're building these sets of lenses out there.

[00:02:03]Uh, they go for about five roughly $5,000 US US. Um, so it is an investment. Um, definitely I had this been I've been saving for this for a while ever since they announced it. Um, I bought two lenses, the 36 and the 65.

[00:02:18]The 36 is the 45 mil and then the 65 is the 80 mil with this.8 speed booster um in there. That feels nice. It's lighter than I expected.

[00:02:29]It looks big, but it's pretty light. And that's LPL. Fantastic. Good. I couldn't remember it was LPL or PL.

[00:02:38]And there it is. Oh, I'm like, why is it not twisting? There's tape on here.

[00:02:48]And that one.

[00:02:51]Let's do this. There we go.

[00:02:56]Okay.

[00:03:01]It's alive. It's real. That being said, there are some significant improvements obviously just from the housing itself.

[00:03:07]It's built for production. Now, I've never had an a lens from Buff Optics.

[00:03:12]And so, for the most part, this feels pretty well built. The tolerances do feel a bit loose in some areas. I mean, this this is a very smooth ring. Um, I believe it's probably around 270 to 300°. I had to look on the site. I'll probably put it up on here. Um, but everything else is not a very it's not it's it's fluid. I would say it's fluid tolerance. It's not a very tighter tolerance like my Nissi Orius lenses.

[00:03:36]They're a much tighter tolerance. Um, obviously these are not weather sealed.

[00:03:40]Don't think that there's so many gaps in this lens where dust and whatnot they can get in it. So, servicing and putting this in specific use case is going to be very important. But yes, there's significant improvements. They improved the close focus. This gets down to 17 in, which is a lot better for this lens.

[00:03:58]This is over um almost 2 feet. Yeah, about 2 feet. Um in terms of close focus, you can see that here.

[00:04:24]Um primarily my camera right now is the DFX1002. It is a GF sensor. So, you're getting in this case in 4K the full width, not the height like the Eterna.

[00:04:34]Uh, so I'm taking somewhat of advantage of this lens with this combination in this camera. Uh, but I would love to put this on the GFX Eterna to get more of what this actually sees. But, um, I did do a side by side.

[00:04:49]This is 65 at 217.

[00:04:55]What it look like on full frame.

[00:05:00]in the same position.

[00:05:03]Mhm.

[00:05:05]And I did it for both sets of lenses. So the 80. So you'll see it from standard and cropped and then the 65 and crop. So you just get a reference.

[00:05:24]Yeah, this feels about like an ARL.

[00:05:26]Probably a little lighter than an ARL.

[00:05:29]You can feel the optics back here.

[00:05:31]Basically, that's very smooth. Oh, I forgot to mention this is a 95 front. So, you can put your 95 front clamp on Mac boxes and then like I said earlier, LPL mount. But the close focus, I'm actually very happy that the close focus has improved. This makes it a much more versatile lens. Now I'm even more excited to see what 60 uh the 36 looks like. Um but yeah, I'm going to add either a longer focal length later on this year possibly, maybe the 200 that they have or the 180 that they have. Uh that becomes um the set that I want. And if they go a little bit wider, I know there's only one wide lens from the Mia from the Mamia lineup, which is the 24, and that's a fisheye.

[00:06:13]So either they somehow re-engineer that to be recctor linear. I don't mind it being fisheye. That would be the widest out of the set. Um, but we'll see what they do with that. But 36 is going to be the widest for me. They do have a 28, which is the 35, so I could go that route. And 28 is pretty wide on these types of sensors. Anyway, so um yeah, philosophy wise, I'm still I'm still a baby in this industry in terms of uh film making. I'm still writing my first narrative short film right now. But I've always admired uh cinematographers and directors that just have a particular taste. They they like what they like.

[00:06:50]And I going to do the same thing. I like these lenses. I like how they render. I just I think they're just beautiful. And so, um, in terms of, you know, I think about different DPS that I look up to who have a particular taste of optics.

[00:07:04]So you Deacons and Bradford Young and you know who else whoever they always kind of have their base or their foundation you know the signature primes or you know the Blackwing 7s it's kind of biased cuz he Bradford Young helped develop those but I'm just thinking about those like you know what lens what do I want to be associated with once I continue to develop my look over time over the years and that's going to be with the Mia 645s uh to be honest um in this case the Mamia 65. So that's just me. Uh sure it might feel some of you might feel it might be premature but you know it's okay to just put yourself in a box in some in some instances in my opinion. Um because if you know I can get creative within that box and that's what I plan to do and that's what I've always kind of done. Yes, I love other lenses. I I love using my VR uh the Voltlander lenses, the Nissi Oricas lenses. Still going to use those lenses and I'm still going to build my taste around those but this is going to be the sweet spot. These are not leaving unless I have to. These are not leaving my kit.

[00:08:06]Um, and yeah, I'm pretty excited for it.

[00:08:09]So, again, this is a first initial impressions of this lens. I just got it.

[00:08:14]Things are going to be coming down the way. Once I get the second lens, I'll definitely do a proper uh re review and comparison of the two. Um, but for now, if you guys are wondering how this looks, the closest imagery I have right now on my channel, I have four videos right now that I've used the Mia lenses on for projects and testing stuff like that. So, you can check those out. Um, but yes, uh, a review will be coming um, once I have the other lens and I can kind of move over from there. So, yeah, thanks for watching and I catch you guys next time.