In researching the Mamiya 6MF camera prior to buying one a little over 20 years ago, I read a review which included mention of the Auto Close-up Lens attachment for the Mamiya’s 75mm F3.5 G lens. The reviewer described this device as ‘baroque-looking’ and asserted that ‘you also shouldn’t use this camera for extreme close-up …
I tried out my first ever 35mm roll of Fuji Velvia 50 (‘RVP’) in mid 1990, not very long after it became available in Australia. It totally blew my mind and I was instantly hooked. Back then I was living in Melbourne and my job on a fisheries research project provided some great photo opportunities …
Fujifilm Velvia and My Shallow and Shameless Dumping of Kodachrome Read More
A recent clean-up in the end room of our house resulted in a pile of junk being removed from on top of my light box, a glorious 1.4m long expanse of slide-viewing luxury made for me by my brother many years ago, which sits on top of two, two-drawer filing cabinets, oriented back-to-back, each full …
5 Frames of Kodachrome 25 and 64 – an unromantic retrospective Read More
The Mamiya 6 Automat, a 1955 folding 6×6 folder has been reviewed most engagingly on Youtube by a bloke called Martin Henson, who has a great accent and a great photographic eye, in addition to an unpretentious and accessible way of explaining things. It’s a camera that is actually superfluous to my ‘needs’ as a …
Mamiya 6 Automat Mini-Review – A small, cheap 6×6 with a good lens! Read More
I’ve been using medium format film cameras for over thirty years – initially a (too brief) period with a Rolleiflex in the early 90s and since 2002 a Mamiya 6MF which I still enjoy using. My initial attraction to the format was the combination of portability, speed and simplicity of operation, and, of course, ‘real estate’! I loved the fact that from a good 6×6 negative or transparency you could make a print up to a metre square that contained sufficient resolution of detail to transport the viewer into another space-time continuum. All that extra visual information can turn an inspired capture from merely ‘wow’ into full-blown choir-of-angels transcendence. Then my recent experience with my grandfather’s ancient No. 1A Autographic Kodak Junior, with its vast 6x11cm frame size, sowed the seeds of desire for more! In a shameless and hubristic rejection of Lao Tzu’s timeless wisdom, I decided that enough was no longer enough! I wondered, how much additional awesomeness might be achieved with a rectangular format on roll film using a sharp, modern lens?
