Mamiya 7ii camera review by Richard de Bulat
I would be less than truthful if I said that getting my hands on a Mamiya 7 did not fulfill one of my photographic ambitions, so I was happy to test out this iconic camera with a roll of Delta 100 and see if I could do it justice.
My original intention was to use it for a bit of street photography, but the light wasn’t good and the rain I expected did not arrive, so I headed out around Burrator looking for some landscape shots.
The Mamiya 7ii is used for street photography and landscapes, for which it is ideally suited and, with the 6x7cm format, it captures a great deal of detail. While you can use it for portraiture, the closest focusing distance of 1 metre can be a bit restrictive; full and half length portraits are fine, but anything closer is pretty much impossible. But scenes with space, both urban and pastoral are grist to its mill.
It is a simple camera to use with an inbuilt light meter that gives an indication for best exposure or you can use it in aperture priority where the camera will automatically select the shutter speed. I used this setting for two frames, one with a lot of background light and one in a more shaded setting and both gave usable negatives, although a stop of exposure compensation with backlit subjects is probably advisable.
I took a single frame at 1/60th sec and the rest were either 1/30th sec or 1/15th sec and I used a monopod to steady the shots. I think that 1/60th sec is probably safe, but the leaf shutter is so silent and gentle you could probably hand-hold down a stop or two if well braced - the weight of the camera, grip and basic ergonomics making this one of the lightest medium format cameras and easy to hold. All Mamiya lenses are excellent, in my experience, and the 80mm f4 lens is no less so.
This camera is certainly expensive and much sought after due to its form factor, relatively light weight for medium format and the 6x7 ratio that delivers such excellence film quality. The rangefinder is easy to use, the shutter is near silent, handling is excellent – in many ways this is the perfect medium format camera, easily comparable with a Leica M, but with a much larger negative, so what’s not to like? Well, pretty much nothing; I can’t think when I have handled a better camera in the sense of delivering film quality, or an easier one to use.
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