Mamiya 645E: Medium Format SLR

The Mamiya 645E is a medium format SLR that proved the concept of a professional specs camera in an affordable body.

Mamiya 645E

It has an internal metal chassis and a plastic body. It's still very well made, and it's like a sort of EOS Rebel cousin. It's indeed a very reliable camera. Maybe the best example of "plastic fantastic" equipment. 

Main features:

• Uses 120 film and shoots frames of 6x4.5 cm. This is more than three times the area of a 35mm film
• It can be used in aperture priority or in manual exposure mode, with AE lock and exposure compensation from -2 to +2
• Has a HUGE, extremely clear viewfinder with a split image and microprism focusing aid.
• Shows selected shutter speed on viewfinder
• Exposure time goes from 8s to 1/1000s
• Diopter adjustment from -4 to +4
• Mechanical film advance
• Manual focus
• Flash hot shoe
• Uses one 4LR44 alkaline battery

The standard lens is the very fine Mamiya Sekor 80mm F2.8 and it's extremely sharp, one of the best medium format lenses I've ever used.

Note that most of the MF 80mm lenses have maximum apertures around F3.5-4.5 .

The metering is center weighted and usually very precise with negative film, but depending on the situation you may need to compensate in some situations if you're using positive film, for example, taking photos at a sunny beach or snow.

Here you can download the manual

There are plenty of lenses at a very fair price on the market.

- 35mm F3.5 
- 45mm F2.8
- 55mm F2.8
- 70mm F2.8 Leaf shutter
- 110mm F2.8
- 80mm F1.9
- 80mm F2.8
- 80mm F4 Macro
- 120mm F4 Macro
- 150mm F3.5
- 150mm F4
- 210mm F4
- 300mm F5.6