Paulo J Moreira
Mamiya U
At last I have found a Mamiya U and a working one. People talk about it a lot, but frankly, except for the design and mysterious name, it’s a rather ordinary compact. People would like you to believe that the U is an Olympus XA copy, sadly, it isn’t. The camera is huge compared to the XA, it’s roughly the size of a Canon Sureshot first generation, but no AF, motordrive, or manual exposure.
Well, I think the design is nice with every control revolving around the lens hump, it is original and fresh. Trouble is, this is a scale focusing camera, no rangefinder like the XA and a very ordinary viewfinder. There is thumbwheel for advancing the film (like the XA series) and the rewind crank is flushed at the base plate, like the XA and other cameras (Konica, Pentax, etc).
By this time, AF was coming in force and this Mamiya (mine doesn’t have the Mamiya-Sekor lens inscription) has none of the technology offered by other rivals, except a very annoying (and loud) beeping that alerts you to switch on the flash.
The lens is a 35/2.8 five element lens, but from the pictures that I´ve seen taken with this camera, it’s nothing special. I think people associate the Mamiya name with medium format and conclude that this lens must perform like its bigger brothers.
I can understand the bare bones approach, by this time, Mamiya-Sekor was in deep trouble and soon they would stop production of 35 mm photo equipment, but they had enough time to launch an AF version of this camera.
Mamiya U
At last I have found a Mamiya U and a working one. People talk about it a lot, but frankly, except for the design and mysterious name, it’s a rather ordinary compact. People would like you to believe that the U is an Olympus XA copy, sadly, it isn’t. The camera is huge compared to the XA, it’s roughly the size of a Canon Sureshot first generation, but no AF, motordrive, or manual exposure.
Well, I think the design is nice with every control revolving around the lens hump, it is original and fresh. Trouble is, this is a scale focusing camera, no rangefinder like the XA and a very ordinary viewfinder. There is thumbwheel for advancing the film (like the XA series) and the rewind crank is flushed at the base plate, like the XA and other cameras (Konica, Pentax, etc).
By this time, AF was coming in force and this Mamiya (mine doesn’t have the Mamiya-Sekor lens inscription) has none of the technology offered by other rivals, except a very annoying (and loud) beeping that alerts you to switch on the flash.
The lens is a 35/2.8 five element lens, but from the pictures that I´ve seen taken with this camera, it’s nothing special. I think people associate the Mamiya name with medium format and conclude that this lens must perform like its bigger brothers.
I can understand the bare bones approach, by this time, Mamiya-Sekor was in deep trouble and soon they would stop production of 35 mm photo equipment, but they had enough time to launch an AF version of this camera.