the mamiya 35mm slr homepage

Yes, I must admit that this site was founded only for my personal interests. I'am the owner and user of a MSX 500 and I'm amazed about the quality of the lenses. But: Mamiya discontinued producing 35mm-Cameras in 1984 and "represses" its 35mm-history, you can hardly get information. So I decided to make the mamiya 35mm slr homepage and to collect datas and experiences. This page is very incomplete by now and this project may take a long time ... so you are invited to help me. If you are a satisfied mamiya-user as well, please send me all your knowledge.

My address: joerg@eddy.uni-duisburg.de - SendMail
See also older Mamiya Cameras at www.mamiya.com (new forum since March 2001)
and the UK Forum at www.mamiya.co.uk.
The german branch of Mamiya in Munich still checks and repairs 35mm cameras and still keeps a lot of spare parts in its depot. Please have in mind, that the technicians there used to service professional medium format cameras - so your camera will receive a qualified service on the same terms and to the same price.
NEW: I summarized the links scattered around my site so far here.

A very brief history: Mamiya was founded in 1940 by the businessman Tsunejiro Sugawara and the engineer Seichi Mamiya. The stylized SM symbol on older Mamiya cameras stands for their initials and not for Mamiya/Sekor. They first built the famous medium format Mamiya-6 with backfocussing system, the first 35mm SLR was introduced in 1961.
Since 1963 the J. Osawa & Co Ltd. was the worldwide distributor of Mamiya products outside of Japan and one of the leading trading houses for consumer products, they even sold lenses for the ZE-cameras under their own label. But in Feb. 1984 thy became a bankrupt, it was one of the greatest economic failures in the japanese history - with consequences for Mamiya. In Germany e.g. the 35mm SLR were sold out of the bankrupt's assets by the local trading house Quelle.
I think, after the reccommencement Mamiya concentrated on the medium format and dropped the 35mm completely.

Since October 2000 I'm not the only one any more. Ron Herron, another enthusiastic camera collector, who helped me with much informations, has created his own very recommendable Mamiya-site. It is the best address for Mamiya Rangefinders.

This site starts with an overview about the cameras. These data come without warranty and are incomplete. I tried to divied them into families, for a detailed descriptions click on the family name. For a better survey I summarized the four cameras with fixed lens to the "fixed-lens"-family, though they are independent models.
Please notice the different notations of Mamiya (MAMIYA, mamiya/sekor, mamiya, Mamiya)

List of Mamiya 35mm-SLR-bodys, sorted by families