The 6 is possibly the most compact 120 camra out there today, with a very quiet shutter, and one of the best wideangles out there. To me the whole reason to get a rangefinder is because it is compact, quiet, and doesn''''t need retrofocus design for it''''s wideangle lenses. Unlike the Mamiya 7, the lens collapses into the body, this makes it very flat and compact.
Flash sync on all lenses is at all speeds including 1/500, which is twice the speed of any Canon, Nikon or Leica.Ĭompact size, it''''s really not much bigger than a full featured 35mm AF SLR. They are far more accurate than any mechanical shutter as on most Leica, Hasselblad and large format cameras. Electronic shutter control gives perfect accuracy at slower speeds and is limited only by shutter efficiency issues at the very top speeds. Apertures of course may be set anywhere and the meter reads this, too.
Manual shutter control is at full stops while automatic control is stepless. It tests much better than the Zeiss Distagon for the Rolleiflex and the same as the Zeiss lens on the Hasselblad.The fact that these are rangefinder lenses and can be designed without having to work around the rear lens extension interfering with an SLR mirror allows the Mamiya 6's lenses to outdo the SLR systems.Īll three lenses have their own electronic leaf shutters providing speeds from 4 seconds to 1/500 and Bulb.
The 50mm lens is one of the most perfect lenses I have ever used. This makes my medium format Mamiya more compact to carry than any of my Nikon SLRs.All three lenses are spectacular. The Mamiya 7 cannot do this, and this is very, very important to me. Heck, it weighs less and gets smaller than my Nikon. It is better than the current Mamiya 7 system in terms of convenience, which is the whole point of these cameras.All three lenses collapse about 1.5" into the camera body, making a very compact camera. This is the world's most perfect camera system. Buy a Mamiya 6 and you will never regret it it will be a classic like a Leica M series. For flash, I use a Sunpack 3800 but now wish I had bought a more powerful Metz the synch works at all speeds but I tend to use 1/30th or 1/60th unless it is for a fill in flash. I tend to find that the Kodak & Agfa films colour negative films don't give the same clarity of result (seems grainy and could down to the user) but Kodak 400VC does give some pleasing images, particularly on older people. I do use Fuji Velvia 50 with astounding results, but I find that a hand held meter does improve the results either that or expose at 32ASA. Metering is so good that I don't bother with a hand held light meter but I do use mainly colour negative film (Fuji Superia 100, Fuji Reala 100, Fuji NPS and NPC 160) and it tends to have more exposure latitude than transparency films. I find that lens filters degrade the results substantially so I don't bother wit them now. You do find that the amount of detail that is reproduced is amazing. The best results seem to be around F8 and F11 in terms of sharpness edge to edge for all the lenses but the fall off at smaller and larger apertures is not particularly noticeable. The 150mm is more difficult to get good results from because of the small focussing area relative to the distance of the subject. My favourite lenses are the 50mm and 75mm as they are pin sharp if you had the choice of one all purpose lens I would take the 75mm as the results are so crisp and it is very cheap. It is a great travel camera, dead reliable, fits my hand beautifully, robust, fairly versatile, quiet, reasonably unobtusive and easy to use.
The results from the camera and all the lenses have been superb. Mamiya 6: £1500 in total for body & 3 lenses second hand.