Mamiya Magazine 35 (1957)
The Mamiya Magazine 35 came out in April 1957 at a retail price of $139.95. At first glance it looks like a conventional mid-1950s rangefinder. Its defining feature is the removable film back, a "magazine" that lets a photographer swap films mid-roll. That put it on a very short list of 35mm cameras with interchangeable backs, alongside the Kodak Ektra, the Zeiss Ikon Contarex Super, and the Adox 300. The camera was considered a bit basic in features for its price, and sales were reportedly poor.
The body is all-metal and fully mechanical, with a coupled rangefinder and a Seikosha-MXL shutter running from 1 to 1/500th second. The standard lens was a Mamiya Sekor 5cm f/2.8. A faster 5cm f/2.0 Sekor was available as an option. A built-in light meter was included, and the photographer had full manual control over shutter speed and aperture. A lock wheel secures the film magazine in place and opens the darkslide. The wind lever connects to a slotted drive that engages the magazine's film sprocket drive.
The instruction manual, dated c.1957, runs 32 pages. It includes a short history of Mamiya 35mm products, a 1957 magazine review, and a period advertisement. Butkus.org sells the reprint for $20 and calls the Magazine 35 a "fascinating" camera. The original name of the 1957 review's publication hasn't survived in the record. Mamiya introduced the Magazine 35 in the same year as the Mamiyaflex C, the 6×6 TLR with interchangeable lens pairs.
Little else is firmly documented. The photographic dictionary source describes the lens as "removable," while another source calls it "fixed" — a conflict that remains unresolved in the available record. The camera is described as rare today, and it occasionally appears at auction or in dealer listings, often with the f/2.8 Sekor. It is a genuinely unusual piece, and one of the few 35mm cameras ever built around the idea of swapping film backs mid-roll.
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