past and present

Mamiya Mania

As will be revealed, this article, has proved to be the most expensive and frustrating of any I ever previously completed for Tailboard. It’s the story of my acquisition of two Mamiya 6 cameras, totally different in design and made about 40 years apart.

I was attracted to the nineties vintage Mamiya 6MF (pictured, above) because of its square format, eye level viewfinder and modest weight compared to all metal cameras. MF stands for multi format, a concept derided by the American reviewer Ken Rockwell. Different formats are achieved by the insertion of masks which need to stay in place for the whole film. Rockwell asserts that most photographers are capable of cropping their images after processing and don’t need these accessories, Mine didn’t come with masks although the viewfinder displays various reminders of them.

This camera was used professionally by my friend, the photojournalist Barry Lewis, whose work is well worth looking up online. I’ve bought several cameras from Barry who always says, “take it away and try it out.” I followed his advice and my first task was to download the camera’s instruction book. This showed me how to use the mechanism which opens and closes a light shield curtain which protects the film when changing lenses. An incentive for me to buy this particular camera was that it came with the superb 50mm wide angle lens in addition to the standard 75mm.
A collapsible lens mount reduces the camera’s bulk when not in use. Like its older namesake, 120 film is used although a 35mm adaptor was produced. Exposure is determined via aperture priority or manually with the correct speed being indicated by a flashing red LED in the viewfinder.

Making a rare trip away from our Covid isolation we visited a park which has a small wood yard for children to choose their materials to construct a den. The light was excellent and I returned home satisfied and was further heartened when my film loaded quite smoothly into the developing tank. All went well with the processing until I poured the stop bath back into its container and was alarmed by the film reel emerging from the tank only to disappear under the work top. I threw myself towards the light switch before spending quite a few minutes looking for the errant reel. After fixing, I was partially relieved that the film wasn’t totally fogged and I chose a frame that seemed to have almost escaped unscathed.

My articles reflect the theme, Past to Present, so I decided to buy an example of the earlier Mamiya-6 enlisting friend and fellow member Andrzej Jablonski with the task of choosing an example in good cosmetic condition on Ebay. This was sourced from Premium Camera Store in Tokyo and arrived in less than a week, followed by a demand for £32 duty plus charges from Fedex who have compounded the issue by claiming I haven’t paid their bill. In this climate people seem to refuse to answer phones or any other form of communication whilst retaining the ability to up their hostile demands or court action will ensue. Fortunately my bank statement can be used in evidence.

Two features on my new camera immediately stood out – The lens is an Olympus D. Zuiko. The ‘D’ stands for 4 elements. Mamiya bought lenses from various companies and even invited customers to provide their own, a far cry from the superb Mamiya-made lenses the new Mamiya 6.

The other feature was the wheel on the rear of the camera which moves the focal plane to focus the picture. Our editor, David, points out that Ensign Commando has a similar arrangement but was there a licensing arrangement between the two companies? YouTube has been useful to identify the exact model of my camera – IVB c1955 – and also provided a demonstration of the film loading procedure. It became apparent that the camera had a few mechanical issues but by trial and error I managed to obtain 10, 6X6cm images. I did contact the company in Tokyo and was told that I could return the camera for a refund. Perhaps unwisely I didn’t, on the grounds that it would mainly be a display camera and that my article deadline was imminent. Unfortunately after processing a film showing the new old people’s home across the road from our house, I discovered that most of the developed negatives were showing a patch of fogging, confirmed by the classic test of looking through the bellows towards a bright light.
An arrangement was made to have the old bellows removed by repairer Miles and a replacement made by Custom Bellows in Birmingham, and posted back to Miles for installation. Just before posting the camera to start this process I set up my Manfrotto tripod in the garden and put the camera in place. Alarmingly, for the first time in at least thirty years I failed to lock the plate onto the tripod correctly and the camera fell onto our garden path (see front cover of this Tailboard). Fortunately, the impact missed the lens but slightly distorted the folding linkage. I asked Miles to assess the damage before going ahead with the new bellows. He seemed quite relaxed about this and he should now have received a quite expensive piece of folded material.

Back in May 1940, Tsunejiro Sugawara and Seichi Mamiya, businessman and engineer respectively, launched their first camera, which in its various forms was in production for 18 years. Later in the 1980s in response to a difficult financial climate
the new Mamiya 6 and 7 were introduced – ground breaking cameras albeit with shorter production lifespans.

I feel pleased to have acquired two important cameras in the history of Mamiya and suspect that they will not be the last Mamiya cameras to join my collection.