Mamiya 7

The Mamiya 7 is the Mamiya 6 of 1989 rebuilt around a 6×7 frame. camera-wiki dates its release to 1 June 1995; the Japanese Wikipedia product list agrees on the month. Everything that made the 6 work is here: an electronic #00 leaf shutter in each lens, timed from B and 4 seconds to 1/500 by a dial on the body; a cloth dark slide inside the body, wound across by a dial on the base, so lenses can be changed mid-roll; aperture-priority AE with lock and manual from a silicon photodiode that sits in the finder window rather than behind the lens; and a coupled rangefinder on a 60mm base. What went was the retracting mount, which the 6×7 gate could not accommodate, and what came was reach: six lenses from the N 43mm f/4.5 L to the N 210mm f/8 L where the 6 had three.

The manual’s specification page gives the numbers. The body weighs 920 g and measures 159 × 112 × 69mm, 1,210 g and 123mm deep with the N 80mm f/4 L. The finder magnifies 0.57× and shows 83 per cent of the field at infinity, with an effective rangefinder base of 34.2mm, and it carries bright-line frames for the 65, 80 and 150 only; the 43, 50 and 210 are composed through the optical finders supplied with them while the body’s rangefinder still does the focusing, which is the arrangement Japan Camera Hunter finds hardest to live with on the 43. The meter reads EV 3 to 18 at ISO 100 with the 80mm, film speeds run from ISO 25 to 1600, compensation is plus or minus 2 EV in thirds, and a single 6V 4SR44, 4LR44 or 2CR1/3 cell powers the lot. The image is 56 × 69.5mm, ten to a roll of 120 and twenty on 220, and the Panoramic Adapter Kit puts 24 × 65mm frames on 35mm film, sixteen from a 36-exposure cassette.

The 7 II of January 1999 changed the camera in four small ways, and the sources agree on them. The finder was made brighter and less prone to flare (camera-wiki: an improved finder that reduces glare); a multiple-exposure control was added; exposure compensation became a one-touch setting (Japanese product list); and a third strap lug was fitted so the camera could hang horizontally, the first body having two lugs on one end that hang it vertically and, as Photo Thinking and Japan Camera Hunter both complain, press into the face at the eye. The first body came only in a titanium-coloured plastic shell over its aluminium-alloy casting; the 7 II was sold in black and in champagne gold, which is how kakaku.com lists its two product entries. Weight stayed at 920 g. Production ended in 2014 by every secondary account, nineteen years after launch, and no Mamiya notice of the end was reached.

What to check follows from the design. The rangefinder can drift out of alignment and should be tested at infinity and close up (Photo Thinking); the plastic shell chips at the corners; the shutter release is sensitive enough that Japan Camera Hunter reports accidental frames in normal handling. Because the meter cell is outside the lens, the camera will cheerfully expose a whole roll with the cap on, which Hamish Gill did for half of one. Every lens carries its own shutter, so a body cannot be tested without one, and a lens cannot be tested without a body; the dark slide must be open for the release to work and closed for the lens to come off, and a camera that will do neither has usually been left in the wrong state rather than broken. The 43mm’s external finder makes precise framing difficult, which is the trade for the widest lens available on any medium-format rangefinder.

What remains open: a list price in any currency, which no consulted source prints; the serial-number scheme, which nothing published describes; whether Mamiya upgraded early 7 finders to the 7 II specification on request, which a Photrio thread discusses but which could not be read here; and any production figure, of which there is none. The reviews are unusually consistent on the verdict itself: the sharpest lenses and lightest body in 6×7, at a used price that keeps rising, and a camera that Shoot It With Film’s Drew Evans insists nobody needs in order to get the shot.

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The Mamiya 7 is the Mamiya 6 of 1989 rebuilt around a 6×7 frame. camera-wiki dates its release to 1 June 1995; the Japanese Wikipedia product list agrees on the month. Everything that made the 6 work is here: an electronic #00 leaf shutter in each lens, timed from B and 4 seconds to 1/500 by a dial on the body; a cloth dark slide inside the body, wound across by a dial on the base, so lenses can be changed mid-roll; aperture-priority AE with lock and manual from a silicon photodiode that sits in the finder window rather than behind the lens; and a coupled rangefinder on a 60mm base. What went was the retracting mount, which the 6×7 gate could not accommodate, and what came was reach: six lenses from the N 43mm f/4.5 L to the N 210mm f/8 L where the 6 had three.

The manual’s specification page gives the numbers. The body weighs 920 g and measures 159 × 112 × 69mm, 1,210 g and 123mm deep with the N 80mm f/4 L. The finder magnifies 0.57× and shows 83 per cent of the field at infinity, with an effective rangefinder base of 34.2mm, and it carries bright-line frames for the 65, 80 and 150 only; the 43, 50 and 210 are composed through the optical finders supplied with them while the body’s rangefinder still does the focusing, which is the arrangement Japan Camera Hunter finds hardest to live with on the 43. The meter reads EV 3 to 18 at ISO 100 with the 80mm, film speeds run from ISO 25 to 1600, compensation is plus or minus 2 EV in thirds, and a single 6V 4SR44, 4LR44 or 2CR1/3 cell powers the lot. The image is 56 × 69.5mm, ten to a roll of 120 and twenty on 220, and the Panoramic Adapter Kit puts 24 × 65mm frames on 35mm film, sixteen from a 36-exposure cassette.

The 7 II of January 1999, which has its own page, changed the camera in four small ways, and the sources agree on them. The finder was made brighter and less prone to flare (camera-wiki: an improved finder that reduces glare); a multiple-exposure control was added; exposure compensation became a one-touch setting (Japanese product list); and a third strap lug was fitted so the camera could hang horizontally, the first body having two lugs on one end that hang it vertically and, as Photo Thinking and Japan Camera Hunter both complain, press into the face at the eye. The first body came only in a titanium-coloured plastic shell over its aluminium-alloy casting; the 7 II was sold in black and in champagne gold, which is how kakaku.com lists its two product entries. Weight stayed at 920 g. The first body was sold for under four years; the 7 II carried the design to 2014.

What to check follows from the design. The rangefinder can drift out of alignment and should be tested at infinity and close up (Photo Thinking); the plastic shell chips at the corners; the shutter release is sensitive enough that Japan Camera Hunter reports accidental frames in normal handling. Because the meter cell is outside the lens, the camera will cheerfully expose a whole roll with the cap on, which Hamish Gill did for half of one. Every lens carries its own shutter, so a body cannot be tested without one, and a lens cannot be tested without a body; the dark slide must be open for the release to work and closed for the lens to come off, and a camera that will do neither has usually been left in the wrong state rather than broken. The 43mm’s external finder makes precise framing difficult, which is the trade for the widest lens available on any medium-format rangefinder.

What remains open: a list price in any currency, which no consulted source prints; the serial-number scheme, which nothing published describes; whether Mamiya upgraded early 7 finders to the 7 II specification on request, which a Photrio thread discusses but which could not be read here; and any production figure, of which there is none. The reviews are unusually consistent on the verdict itself: the sharpest lenses and lightest body in 6×7, at a used price that keeps rising, and a camera that Shoot It With Film’s Drew Evans insists nobody needs in order to get the shot.