Mamiya M

If you don’t have time to read this review of the Mamiya M, I can read this to you with the Photo Thinking Blogcast! You can find it on most podcast platforms or here.

Most people would not equate Mamiya with compact cameras. They would generally consider them in regards of medium format or even SLR cameras. But Mamiya did produce quite a few compacts, including the boxy looking Mamiya M. If something screams 1980s to me, it quite likely looks like this!

One thing that attracted me to this camera is the blue ring around the lens. Traditionally, Mamiya blue ring lenses are considered a higher quality. That is saying something as many Mamiya lenses are excellent.

Darling Harbour | Mamiya M | Kodak Pro Image 100

I also seem to have a thing for early autofocus compact cameras. I enjoy shooting the rivals from Nikon with the L35AF, Pentax with the PC35AF, Canon with the SureShot AF35M and more. All these seem super popular these days.

For a while I could not put my finger on why, but then it dawned on me. These cameras do have some very nice lenses on them, most of them with a fairly wide maximum aperture. The key is the nice lens is combined with quite a simple approach. No thinking, point and shoot, but without any fancy function getting in the way.

Ferris Wheel | Mamiya M | Ilford FP4 Plus

Bear with me on this thought. The Mamiya M will not ever not shoot a photo. It does not try and be smarter than you as a photographer. It also will not force flash on you every time you start to use it. Add to that, information in your viewfinder of where you have focused on, it brings fun to shooting.

There are trade-offs with that. The Mamiya M is not what I would class as a small compact, and can be twice as big as more modern compacts. Shape wise, it could have been made in the earlier Volvo factory, without the safety features built in. Just as well it is the performance that matters.

Australian National Museum | Mamiya M | Kodak Ultramax 400

Performance, yes, that lens. Definitely something we need talk about, but before we do that, let’s find out a bit more about the camera.

Traffic control | Mamiya M | Kodak Pro Image 100

History

Looking up the history of a camera which seems to have next to no information of it online, is a daunting task. There is not much on the Mamiya M available, except for a few facts.

Mamiya, in the 1970s and early 1980s was throwing everything at the market to see what would stick. It included a number of compact cameras. The Mamiya M was released in 1982 and was only sold for about a year. At the same time the Mamiya U was also on sale. In 1983 it was replaced with the Mamiya M Time Memory version. It was effectively the same camera but with a date back.

Business men | Mamiya M | Kodak Pro Image 100

The Mamiya M Time Memory was the last 35mm camera Mamiya ever released. It signalled Mamiya’s intention to focus on the medium format market, where they excelled for many decades. When Phase 1 purchased Mamiya, they eventually combined them with Leaf to become Mamiya Leaf who are still trading today. In fact, as an interesting side note, Mamiya is also an innovative manufacturer of golf equipment, through UST Mamiya.

In terms of compact cameras, the Mamiya compacts can be quite collectable these days. Generally, they are interesting because of the lens quality that has always been there.

Fire escape | Mamiya M | Ilford FP4 Plus — Fire Escape | Mamiya M | Ilford FP4 Plus

Camera Specifics

The Mamiya M is a 35mm autofocus compact from the early 1980s. It has a boxy plastic shape, with a fixed Mamiya Sekor 38mm f/2.8 lens. The lens is four elements in three groups. Exposure is fully automatic, based on the film speed, where the ISO is selected via a dial around the lens. Film speed available is 25 – 800 ISO.

The metering cell is located just under the lens, but within the lens ring. This allows for the metering to take into account any 46mm filter screwed onto the lens. That is assuming it is not a graduated filter. Fastest shutter speed is 1/500^thsecond with the slowest at 1/8^th. The camera is always on, except when fitted with a specially designed lens cap, which triggers the off state. There is a strategically placed switch it pushes against on the right side of the lens. Most of these caps are lost, including mine.

Next to the lens, at the bottom right, is the self-time switch. By pulling it down, it will initiate the timer once the shutter release button is pressed. On the other side of the lens is the flash switch. This releases the spring, and the flash pops up ready for use, well, when the battery charges enough of it. The Mamiya M does not automatically have flash on when turned on.

The camera focuses the lens by pressing the shutter release or half pressing it to focus only. It uses the red focusing beam located just above the lens.

At the top of the camera is the shutter release button, the frame counter and the rewind switch. Film advance is fully automatic on this camera with the distinctive mechanical sound made by 1980s cameras. Rewinding will keep going as long as you hold the rewind switch in place.

At the back of the camera is the viewfinder, and a light to let you know that the flash is ready to fire. The back also opens up to load film. Loading film is easy, just pull the film from the canister across to the right and place the leader at the red mark. Close and press the shutter release.

The viewfinder is a nice and bright albada type with frame lines. Parallax error is handled with marks within the frame lines. Closest focus is one metre. It has 0.45x magnification with 83% coverage of the picture area. A focus marking is in the centre.

At the bottom it displays the focus distance with the traditional icons of a headshot, a couple, group of people and mountains for infinity. The distance is indicated with a needle pointer.

The camera is powered by two AA batteries. Like pretty much all compact cameras of the era, it has a flimsy cover and likely to break. Like me, I suggest you put a piece of electrical tape when you have inserted the batteries, as over the years the degraded rubber will not be as strong as it used to be. This way it is protected a little.

The Experience

One of my interests in cameras leans towards Mamiya amongst some others. The company fascinates me, how through a process of doing almost everything they were quite successful. That is until they then focused on medium format, and were hugely successful there too. It is no wonder that for a company with so many diverse products, there is a high percentage of collectability amongst them.

One part of my collection is the compact cameras, and I have a few Mamiya ones, namely this Mamiya M and some Mamiya Us. I bought this on eBay when I saw it for a very reasonable price and quoted as fully working about three years ago. When I received it I was quite impressed with the condition it is in.

Shadows on building | Mamiya M | Kodak Pro Image 100

On the build quality, it is very plastic. I do not think it would take much break this camera, especially the battery cover. So I did what I tend to do with the Nikon L35AF and others, I put some black electrical tape over the cover when it has batteries, which avoids my all thumb hands breaking it.

The blue ring around the lens is something that attracted to me to this camera. I know from the Mamiya TLRs, the blue ring lenses are very much in demand. They are considered the top level of Mamiya lens quality. I am not sure it applies to this camera, as I cannot find any information on this, but the performance of the lens certainly signifies this.

Sunlight streak | Mamiya M | Kodak Pro Image 100

I used this as one of my main compact cameras for most of 2023, and really enjoyed it. Not only as it is a one button operation, but also the results showed the metering inside was very accurate. I shot in a few challenging environments, light wise, and it performed very well. Even when I needed flash, it is very 1980s, but with modern film especially, very little was blown out, if any.

Focusing is quite quick, although as with most compacts, you need to centre it first. I’ve loaded it mainly with slower 100 ISO film, as I find the 1/500^th shutter speed maximum can be a little challenging in the bright Sydney sunshine. Mainly I use Kodak Pro Image 100 and Ilford FP4 Plus, with a bit of Kodak Gold 200 thrown in. Only once did I use 400 ISO with Kodak Ultramax 400.

I have taken the camera on trips to Canberra, and to quite a few festivals here in Sydney. It also served as a great camera for walks around work when I was working more centrally. One thing that became apparent is that this lens is something quite special. I did not expect results as sharp and well defined from a camera that in all honesty, felt very plasticky.

Looking closely to the photographs, there is very little exposure vignetting. The images are consistent across the whole frame with very little darkening at the edges. I suspect the camera uses a smaller aperture as much as exposure allows for, which helps. I’d say this also contributes to good depth of field in many photos too.

Phone message | Mamiya M | Kodak Pro Image 100

But the sharpness is what really blew me away. Looking at the specs after shooting it for a while, I noticed it is a four element lens. That would contribute a lot to it, as well an ensuring the image is also well corrected from flaws.

It has not been all good times with the Mamiya M though. I did notice that a couple of times the camera went past the thirty six frames. The first time I assumed it was not loaded properly, so I put the film through again. It had gone through so I ended up with a double exposed film, which is not what I wanted, but gave me some cool results.

Looking closely at the manual, it seems that the camera may give off a rattle sound at the end of the film, even though it should technically lock the shutter release. A bit weird, but must have been a built in “feature” to have made it to the manual. I should have just rewound the film and stuck a new one in there.

Using the camera itself, the viewfinder is nice and clear and it is obvious where you are focusing, even in lower light. The frame lines are nice and clear and to be fair, there really is not much more to it. Even the battery usage was not an issue, even without the cap to turn it off, as long as I used a regular lens cap to minimise the light on the meter.

Lamb on a spit | Mamiya M | Kodak Gold 200

As a final thought, the Mamiya M is a surprising compact which is not a very compact camera. It feels plastic, but its performance is way above that. The results really impressed me and really were much higher quality than I expected.

Would I recommend one? Prices tend to be on the mid to high range for a good working one, and with that I would still say yes. Keep in mind you need to make sure it is working properly, the results speak for themselves. If you want something smaller, there are some other options, but it is not a very heavy camera regardless. In fact I enjoyed being able to hold it properly. So keep an eye out for one in your area, they are not that plentiful, and then enjoy shooting it. It will give you results which are just “mmmm” (sorry, the dad joke had to be done).