New Mamiya 6
From Silvergrain Research
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Range finder camera
Except for well designed autofocus cameras, rangefinder cameras are faster and easier to focus than SLR cameras, especially in dim lighting conditions. Also, new Mamiya 6's leaf shutter is fast responding and very quiet. Both these qualities make new Mamiya 61, and many users switched to 7 in favor of the rectangular format. Soon after, Mamiya 6 was lead to discontinue. However, new Mamiya 6 is highly praised by followers of square images, and is still very popular. ) an excellent choice for candid snapshots, however, this camera is capable of doing almost everything except for closeup photography and tight head portraits with excellent result. Although the viewfinder is parallax corrected, the accuracy at extreme closeup is somewhat suspicious, and the lenses do not focus close enough for tight head portrait work. Also, if you are shooting small children or animals, you might want to use autofocus cameras since the subject moves too quickly and unpredictably.
Lenses
There are 50mm F/4.0, 75mm F/3.5 and 150mm F/4.5. All these lenses give good contrast even at wide open.
50mm f/4.0
This 50mm is very sharp, high contrast, and has very little distortion. The image is very clear corner-to-corner. Since this is a true wide angle lens (not retrofocus-type) light falloff at corners is expected, but the magnitude is surprisingly small. Because of this lens's high contrast and little flare, the lens is very suitable for nightscape and other high contrast situation.
75mm f/3.5
This lens is also very sharp, high contrast and has no distortion, with very even image quality from corner-to-corner. The lens is almost perfect, but I have to take a point off for rather stiff out-of-focus blur (bokeh). Regarding this matter, 80mm lenses for the Mamiya 7 or Mamiya C series TLR are superior. Howeve, the 75mm f/3.5 gives far better image contrast with far less flare compared to the TLR lenses.
150mm f/4.5
150mm is probably the best medium telephoto lens I have ever seen in 35mm and medium format all combined. Very sharp, good contrast and very good out-of-focus bokeh character. I know lenses with better bokeh than this, but they don't deliver the in-focus sharpness and contrast that this lens does. Noticeable light fall off at corners when wide open, although it is not serious. In portrait work, this may be a good vignetting effect; in landscape work, I'd shoot at f/8 or f/11 anyway. One complaints I have heard is that focusing this lens is tricky. This is partly because the baseline of the rangefinder is just long enough for the lens's back focus. However, in my experience, new Mamiya 6 with the 150mm f/4.5 is perfectly capable of delivering sharp images.
Overall, Mamiya 6 has a small but very usable lens line. You don't have a risk of turning into a collector, since you can collect only 3 at most, quite different from the famous Leica disease.
Shutter and exposure modes
This is an electronic lens shutter camera. The timer can be set from 1/500 to 4 seconds plus bulb exposure (x-sync all speeds). The camera has AE (auto exposure) and AEL (auto exposure lock -- AE value locked by halfway depression of the shutter release button) modes. The light sensor is accurate, but within its limitation. It performs as a centerweighted average meter for 50mm but light meter's light reception angle is fixed, so the meter in fact considers wider area if you are using 150mm. The body has electronic self timer, hot shoe, PC socket and shutter release cable socket. The shutter cable is the standard mechanical one. It requires battery, but the body cap has a nice feature -- spare battery compartment. If you buy a used body without body cap, spend $20 for the body cap. It's worth the money.
Body
Very solid body. It's not as solid as Mamiya C3 TLR, which was said "if you drop the camera, the road gets dented, not the camera." The grip is very good, the location of shutter button is perfect, very simple but nice design.
This body has retractable lens mount, which is very well made. The common story of why Mamiya dropped this feature in Mamiya 7 is that it is not accurate. However, this retractable mount is very well designed, and well made with quality parts. I have never heard of any trouble related to the lens mount. Another story I heard from Mamiya technician was that the parts of the retractable lens mount alone already summed over equivalent to $150US, and the the production cost took a larger portion of the wholesale price compared to other Mamiya products. Therefore, more likely story is that, through the corporate restructuring in the era of declined economy, Mamiya had to develop a product with better profit margin, thus the costly lens mount had to be given up. This is especially likely, since Mamiya 7 has larger lens mount, necessitating heavier metal parts if mount was made retractable.
The viewfinder is large, bright and simple. The viewfinder displays frameline, shutter speed (dial's current value and meter suggestion) and double-image to be superimposed, besides curtain warning LED which is usually off. The lens can be switched midroll by closing the curtain to prevent film from exposed by the ambient light. Also, the
On a tripod
Focusing is a little inconvenient on a tripod since one can focus only at the center of the viewfinder. Also, since the film spools extend from the body during film change. Therefore, most tripod heads interfere with these spool, necessitating to remove the camera from tripod for film exchange. Mamiya offers a solution, a tripod adapter which costs about $45 in US. (Mamiya America Corporation's pricing is ridiculous. Mamiya OP in Japan explained to me that Mamiya OP does not have a control on MAC's price policy.) What I found is that Kaiser Quick Release Adapter (Kaiser cat no. 6021, Kaiser Fototechnik, Postfach 1262, D-74711 Buchen) is cheaper ($30) and more convenient for this purpose. This quick release is small and strong enough for Mamiya 6's relatively light weight.
Idiosyncrasies
Film advance is light but requires a larger angle when compared to most modern 35mm rangefinder cameras.
Conclusion
This is very close to my dream camera. Very simple, well designed and well executed, easy to use, fast shooting camera with quiet operation. Very compact and light as a medium format camera with interchangeable lens. The performance is top level. In fact, this camera is next to none -- no other 6x6 rangefinder cameras. Even when compared to top 35mm rangefinder cameras, this camera is still better than most of them. I wish Mamiya offered better 75mm lens. I wish I could focus 150mm lens at a closer distance. Besides these, this is close to my ideal camera, and I highly recommend if you like square format and appreciate high quality images.
Links
- Mamiya 6 Rangefinder 6x6 Camera & Lenses by Hamish Reid (photo.net)
- The original folding Mamiya Six of 1940 (Mamiya OP)
Why named New Mamiya 6?
There are 4 kinds of Mamiya 6.
- Mamiya Six, a folding camera of 1940
- new Mamiya 6, a rangefinder of 1989 (early version)
- new Mamiya 6, a rangefinder of 1989 (late version)
- Mamiya 6 MF, a rangefinder of 1989, later model changed to accept 35mm film for panoramic format (MF for multi-format)
Mamiya made a 6x6 folding camera called Mamiya Six in 1940. There were six variants of Mamiya Six, latest of which was released in 1947.
The camera in question here is the rangefinder camera Mamiya introduced around 1989, which is properly called new Mamiya 6 by Mamiya. (That is, new is a part of the Mamiya's official name.) In the original version of new Mamiya 6, AEL mode was depicted on the shutter speed dial by icons that was too simple, but in the later version it is written in letters as "AEL." Mamiya introduced Mamiya 6 MF where MF stands for multi format. This model can take a film mask and an attachment to expose 645 and 35mm panorama formats, at a cost of cluttered viewfinder framelines. Soon after, Mamiya 7 became available (6x7 cm format(back)
In my opinion, among the rangefinder cameras, new Mamiya 6 (either version) is most desirable. Mamiya 6 MF is less desirable because of its cluttered viewfinder.
