Mamiya 6 Serial Numbers

The Mamiya 6 – a highly subjective review My photography career started with film. Black and white negative film, and an old Pentax spotmatic. I “switched” to digital with a Minolta Maxxum 7d, and shot pretty much exclusively digital from then on- up until about 6 months ago, when I got the itch again.

Lens: f3.5, 65 mm Mamiya-Sekor, iris diaphragm to f32. Shutter: Seiko leaf shutter, speeds 1 - 1/500, B. X, M flash synchronisation. Construction: Metal body. Format: 12, 6 x 6 cm exposures on 120 roll-film. Focusing: Bellows to 11' with 65 mm lens.

Scale to 3' for 65 mm and 80 mm, 4' for 180 mm, 3.5' for 105 mm and 135 mm lenses. Attributes: Reflex viewing through second lens.

Full-size ground glass with fresnel screen. Pointer in finder shows exposure increase as bellows are extended.

Magnifier in hood. Direct-vision frame finder in hood.

Film advance sets shutter. Serial Number: H328714R. With:. f4.5, 180 mm Mamiya-Sekor.

Iris diaphragm to f45. X, M flash synchronisation. With lens caps, double lens hood and view-finder mask.

Lens cap, Lens hood and view-finder mask for 65 mm lens. Ever-ready case. Single Exposure Attachment. For 3 ¼' x 2 ⅜' cut-film. Consists of camera back and three single film holders. Instructions, box. Eye-level finder that replaced the waist-level finder.

Paramender. The Mamiyaflex was introduced in 1957, this is a later model of 1965. The camera is unusual in being a twin-lens design with interchangeable lenses.

A long bellows extension is provided giving a very close focus. It is a large and slightly cumbersome camera to use but ideal in a studio. A nice feature is the display of exposure factors above the focusing screen, these can also be used to compensate for parallax.

The factors for the wide-angle lenses are on a separate removable plastic plate above the screen. A pointer moves across the factor scale as the camera is focused, a dial is set on the camera body to indicate the lens in use. When removing a lens the camera is set to 'unlock', this moves a baffle behind the lens to exclude the light and displays a pointer in the view-finder. The price was £111 without a lens. The view-finder masks for the telephoto lenses are simple metal frames that clip to the outside of the finder, the mask for the 65 mm lens includes a negative lens. Porroflex This is an eye-level finder having three mirrors to give an upright image that is not laterally reversed, the image though is quite dark. The image, right, shows the mirrors within the Porroflex.