It’s not a pleasing marriage of leather and chrome like the Ikon, but the 7 has it’s own charms and quirks. On one hand, perhaps this will lead to better photos, on the other maybe I’ll miss out on serendipitous mistakes, and be less likely to bracket for difficult exposure.Īs hoped, the camera did not attract too much attention, and with it’s large, chunky handgrip, the Mamiya is easy to walk around with. My first few rolls of film will all be spent around Central and East London, again, with only 10 shots to a roll of film, I find myself using a far more critical eye and far more reluctant to shoot than when using 35mm film. It’s all perfectly adequate, but users of other range finders may be disappointed. Operation is otherwise as you expect, on half pushing the shutter release, we can see exposure details at the bottom of the finder, again, this is not as clear as on the Ikon, and the text is very small. This is not a deal breaker for me, with just 10 shots to a roll, it’s probably a good idea to slow down anyway. I can see using this camera will be slower than using my Ikon. AEL mode is on this shutter speed dial too, so it’s not a quick button press like on the Ikon, or most other cameras. This places the Mamiya 7 behind the Ikon in usability in my eyes. A little experimentation later, I find you have to push down a little button before the dial will move. On attempting to set the shutter speed dial to “A”, I found it would not move.
The focus patch however is very clear, maybe more so than the Ikon. The knobs and dials do not feel as good as the Ikon, and the viewfinder is certainly not as crisp and clear. My first impression of the camera leads me to believe this is true. It is often said that the Mamiya 7 takes amazing photos, but the build quality of the camera is only so-so. I had my first roll loaded in no time, and was ready to shoot. This size of course is a trade off for image quality, a 6×7 negative has about 4.3 times the film area of 35mm film, which should make for startlingly more resolution and detail.įirst – load a film! This was easy, as thankfully, it is almost precisely the same as loading the GF670, and I had watched the video by Steve on this very topic.
It’s big, but if you’re used to full frame DSLRs, it will seem reasonable.
I’d seen them in shop windows before, so was ready for it to be a considerable size. On holding the Mamiya 7 for the first time, I consider it to be a reasonable size for what it is. The 80mm lens on the GF670 (or on Mamiya 7, if you so choose) is more like a 39mm lens on 35mm, just a little long for me as an every day lens. On a 6×7 negative, 65mm is more like 32mm on 35mm film, so the 65mm is a wide-normal lens. To cut a long and potentially dull story short, I now own a Mamiya 7 and a 65mm lens. Since buying, I’ve seen a Bessa III (same as GF670) “in the flesh”, and all in black, it is far less eye catching (in a good way), but still every bit as desirable. The GF670 is about as anonymous as walking around sans clothes on my lower half. It’s chrome body and leather bellows look about as good as an inanimate object can, but I wanted to blend into the crowd. The GF670 is every bit as aesthetically pleasing as the Ikon, but it was that, perversely, eventually made me decide against it.
All three are range finders, all film, all have manual controls, but with a pleasant amount of automation (Aperture Priority, built-in meter). In principle, the Mamiya 7 is similar to both the Zeiss Ikon and GF670. Yet more research and consideration was had before settling on the Mamiya 7 range finder camera. Steve’s excellent write up of the Fujifilm GF670 made me set on getting such a camera, or a similar one at least. Consequently, now I was considering medium format film. However, in recent months I have thought more and more about making large prints, larger than 35mm film will comfortably enlarge to. This camera has served me very well, and I of course continue to use it. Much research and discussion later, I ended up with a beautiful Zeiss Ikon 35mm film camera. My Sigma DP-1 is a great camera, which I still use, but after my first trip away with it, I decided I wanted more. When I bought my first camera, just a year ago, I could never have guessed that buying a simple digital camera would lead me to where I am now.