Mamiya Selling Camera Business

[fotogeorge]

This morning, I found several small stories on another forum about Mamiya selling it's camera business.*

Here is a link to an article in English:

http://digitalphotography.weblogsinc...mera-business/

Last week, a salesperson at a camera store told me that he heard that Mamiya Japan was selling it's camera business.* *Has anyone else have more information?* This is a shock for me, since I already had to deal with the KM sell off to Sony.* At least I will be able to use my collection of Minolta-mount AF lenses with the Sony alpha DSLR.* I hope Cosmos will develop a digital camera with a Mamiya-645 mount.* Otherwise, I will eventually only own a costly museum collection of Mamiya lenses.

[SensorDust]

I know, Medium Format does not have much of a following these days, but the news is tragic nevertheless.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/21/m...-on-camera-biz

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1145628753.html

That leaves Hassie, Rollei and perhaps Pentax. Yes, they are all expensive...

[Latinbob]

That's bad news for sure. I've always wanted a Mamiya, but they are so expensive. I just wonder how this will impact the used market.

[scoundrel1728]

Originally Posted by JRS

That leaves Hassie, Rollei and perhaps Pentax. Yes, they are all expensive...

The list isn't quite as short as all that. Exakta and Horeseman are still in the medium format business. Even Fujifilm has a serious medium format model still in production.

And, if you want inexpensive, there's always Holga.

[cyclohexane]

Fujifilm owns Hasselblad's medium format assets, and sells many of Hasselblad's products under the Fuji name, so they're essentially the same player, more or less.

[scoundrel1728]

I was kinda wondering about that when I saw the Fuji model listed among the medium format cameras that B&H is currently selling. There are also the moderately priced Seagull models that look and work a lot like the old Yashicamat twin-lens cameras.

[SensorDust]

I forgot Sinar. The Sinar m could be considered MF although it can be used with 35mm lenses, with the proper mirror box.

[Wrlss911Pro]

This is not as dire as it might sound. Mamiya JAPAN is being sold. Mamiya America Corp. (MAC) is staying around. From what I understand Mamiya is going to release the ZD. Hopefully for less than $12k!