Mamiya 7

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February 1996

Outdoor Photographer

The Backpacker's 6x7

James Martin

The Mamiya 7 rangefinder camera allows you to travel light into the wilderness.

I headed up canyon, tiptoeing across slimy rocks, balancing on fallen logs and scrambling through slide alder. The tiny camera bag didn't affect my balance or betray its contents: a medium-format camera. I carried no tripod, but I could steady the camera sufficiently by bracing myself against a tree. Unlike its bigger brethren, it didn't shudder as a mirror slammed open, and its weight didn't upend me. Its virtues were subtractive, consisting of sins uncommitted. The new Mamiya 7 rangefinder gave me a license to move light and fast.

For my money, medium format delivers the best compromise of size of format and size of camera. The size advantage over 35mm catches the attention of photo editors - it can be easily viewed without magnification. The gain in print quality is greater jumping from 35mm to medium format than from 2 1/4 to 4x5.

After years of lugging my medium format SLR, with its attendant Gitzo and Foba ballhead, over mountains and through rain forests, I needed relief. The ravages of age and imprudence forced me to look for more lightweight equipment, but I was unwilling to give up the grainless images medium format affords.

First, the Mamiya 6 came to my rescue. This three-lens 6x6 rangefinder acted like an overgrown Leica - ergonomic handling, superlative glass, top-flight construction. As I adapted to a new way of shooting, I learned to understand why some people swear by rangefinders while others swear at them.

First, rangefinders lack depth-of-field preview and TTL metering. You determine depth of field by using the markings on each lens instead of checking through the lens. The loss of TTL metering meant I'd have to think when using filters instead of depending on the meter.

Two problems remained. The 6 yielded a square transparency, but the editors at my stock agency preferred a rectangular format. I often cut my images down to 645, squandering some of the advantages of carrying the larger camera. Also, the viewfinder in rangefinders limits the possible focal lengths. The longest telephoto for the 6 is 150mm; therefore, the widest lens reaches only 50mm, equivalent to a 28mm in 35mm. I missed the sweeping foregrounds a wider lens supplies.

With the 7, Mamiya corrected the few limitations that mattered to me. The 6x7 gave a rectangular image and banished the wide-angle limit.

At first glance, the 7 looks like the 6. To gain the crucial additional centimeter of film, the designers added only a centimeter of width and one ounce of weight to the body. It tips the scales at a svelte two pounds, and the sleek body fits the hand well. The fingers of the right hand wrap snugly around a grip built into the body, and the operating controls are conveniently placed.

Like the 6, the camera comes equipped with safety controls to ensure that the film is exposed properly. To change lenses you must engage the dark slide, which protects your film from an accidental flood of light, and the shutter won't operate unless all systems are ready to go. Twisting the pressure plate a quarter-turn changes the film setting from 120 to 220. A self-timer gives the lonely photographer a moment to dash into his or her shot.

The 7 comes with aperture-priority exposure metering and exposure compensation two stops in either direction. LEDs in the viewfinder blink for establishing manual exposures. They also warn when the batteries are on their last legs and blink when over- or underexposure threatens.

The camera's leaf-shutter lenses yield several advantages over focal-plane shutters. The lenses allow flash sync at all speeds, from 4 to 1/500 sec. The risk of camera shake when a mirror slams open at the beginning of an exposure doesn't exist, so the mirror lock-up ritual can be dispensed with. The tiny, low-mass shutters cause almost no vibration during exposure so camera shake is less of a problem, and you can use a smaller, lighter tripod and head. Hand-held shooting produces acceptably sharp images at slower speeds. The shutters are so quiet that the least noise drowns them out.

Scrapping the mirror and the space to house it shed weight and shrank the dimensions of the Mamiya 7. Without a mirror, the lenses can sit closer to the film plane, making it easier for the designers to compensate for chromatic anomalies and other lens aberrations.

The Mamiya 7's viewfinder reduces many rangefinder limitations. The view is bright, making even dimly lit compositions easy to see. With each lens change, the frame lines inside the viewfinder compensate for the new focal length. A small split-image rectangle confirms focus. It's easy to use if the scene has strong lines or textures, but SLR focusing is easier.

The glory of the Mamiya is in its glass. I doubt that anything on the market exceeds the lenses' sharpness and freedom from aberrations. The system includes a 43mm f/4.5 wide-angle (equivalent to about 21mm in 35mm format), a 65mm f/4 wide-angle, an 80mm f/4 standard lens (actually a mild wide-angle) and a 150mm f/4.5 short telephoto, equivalent to 71mm on a 35mm camera.

While all the lensed earned my admiration, the 43mm f/4.5 captured my heart. It's the widest non-fish eye available on a 6x7 system with interchangeable lenses, offering a 92-degree angle of view.

The 43mm exacts an unusual compromise. The in-camera viewfinder clips the edges of the field of view. To encompass the full view, an accessory viewfinder slides into the hot shoe atop the body. Composing a shot requires focusing with the in-camera finder and framing with the dedicated viewfinder. The photographer adapts quickly to the extra steps, but it takes a bit more concentration.

The 43mm lens also allows for true panoramas. An optional 35mm panoramic mask fits over the film plane, and the cassette holder and take-up reel fit into the camera. An external rewind crank crews into the tripod socket.

The Mamiya 7 balances unsurpassed virtues against a small number of inconveniences. although it's the wrong camera for a Serengeti safari and addicts of auto-everything cameras may find withdrawal too distressing, most days the little Mamiya will be my first choice. Whether I'm wandering the canyons of the Southwest or Manhattan, I can travel unencumbered without compromising on what matters most, the quality of the images.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
July 1996 - Rfinder Mamiya's New Approach to Medium Format Joel S. Tlumak