Digging for gold...

In my last post I mentioned ebay as a great way to find old film photography equipment and camera gear so this time I wanted to share a nugget of gold I dug up a while back. Please meet the Mamiya ZE Quartz Timed Automatic Exposure Camera, the coolest camera money can buy... ( at least in 1980...).

Sporting a quartz-controlled focal-plane metal shutter and a center-weighted photo diode the Mamiya Z series was the last of the 35mm cameras produced by Mamiya. But even as this format was going away Mamiya showed innovation by introducing an electronic coupling system to let the lens communicate with the camera body. This was a risky move since it would render lots of older glass (lenses) useless. Following a bankruptcy in the mid 80’s by the only distributor of Mamiya the 35mm format cameras ended production. This did not mean the end of Mamiya but since the late 80’s Mamiya only distribute high-end medium format cameras. So how much did this baby set me back you ask? A whooping $55.00 including two lenses, a 50mm f1.7 and a 75-150mm f3.8. And all of this in MINT condition, how could you go wrong?!?

 one night in Reno... (Mamiya ZE, Kodak T-Max 400)

Here are some super tips on Mamiya cameras and history.

http://www.mamiya35collectors.com (Awesome site by Ron Herron)

http://www.mamiya-usa.com

~jonas