Mamiya 35mm bayonet mounts- same as?

Mark Olson

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Aug 24, 1995, 3:00:00 AM8/24/95

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I have perused a couple of the FAQs but didn't stumble across the answer
to this one, I apologize if it is general knowledge possessed by all
newborn infants. My nephew picked up a Mamiya 35mm camera at a pawn shop.
It came with a 135mm Mamiya/Sekor lens, and he wants to buy a 50mm lens
for it. What type of lens mount does it use? It's not the screw mount
as used on the old Mamiya/Sekor cameras, but sort of bayonet. It looks
vaguely like a Pentax K-mount, but not having a spare K-mount lens lying
about, we were unable to test this theory. A person at a local camera
store told him that he could only use Mamiya lenses. Mamiya couldn't have
been so bold as to invent their own bayonet mount, could they?

Darrell A. Larose

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Aug 25, 1995, 3:00:00 AM8/25/95

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Mark Olson (ols...@ws3901.adc.com) writes:
> I have perused a couple of the FAQs but didn't stumble across the answer
> to this one, I apologize if it is general knowledge possessed by all
> newborn infants. My nephew picked up a Mamiya 35mm camera at a pawn shop.
> It came with a 135mm Mamiya/Sekor lens, and he wants to buy a 50mm lens
> for it. What type of lens mount does it use? It's not the screw mount
> as used on the old Mamiya/Sekor cameras, but sort of bayonet. It looks
> vaguely like a Pentax K-mount, but not having a spare K-mount lens lying
> about, we were unable to test this theory. A person at a local camera
> store told him that he could only use Mamiya lenses. Mamiya couldn't have
> been so bold as to invent their own bayonet mount, could they?
>

Mamiya not only came up two(2)_ different bayonet mounts, neither was
compatible with each other, or with any other known lensmount. All is
not lost as Tamron does(DID?) make an `Adaptall' mount for the Mamiya
orphan mounts, no 50mm in their line but short zooms (wide to tele) do
exist. Bring the camera with you so you will get the correct Mamiya
lens mount.

cheers

Darrell A. Larose | ad...@freenet.carleton.ca|dar...@newforce.ca
I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my Grandfather...
...Not screaming in terror like his passengers...
--

j.tung

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Aug 25, 1995, 3:00:00 AM8/25/95

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In article <41j3il$c...@ingate.adc.com>
ols...@ws3901.adc.com (Mark Olson) writes:

> My nephew picked up a Mamiya 35mm camera at a pawn shop.
> It came with a 135mm Mamiya/Sekor lens, and he wants to buy a 50mm lens
> for it. What type of lens mount does it use? It's not the screw mount
> as used on the old Mamiya/Sekor cameras, but sort of bayonet. It looks
> vaguely like a Pentax K-mount, but not having a spare K-mount lens lying
> about, we were unable to test this theory. A person at a local camera
> store told him that he could only use Mamiya lenses. Mamiya couldn't have
> been so bold as to invent their own bayonet mount, could they?

Not "bold" just "stupid" or "unfortunate". In these electronic days
the mount is proprietary and a 3rd party would either have to pay an
licensing fee or independently engineer the correct electo-optical
interface. Now, in the past, I suppose a 3rd party manufacturer could
just market any ol' lens which just happened to fit a Pentax or Minolta
or whatever. Each major manufacturers bayonet mount was (and still is)
different (P/O/N/M/C), unlike the screw-mount. Sometimes an OEM might
even have incompatibilities within their own lines.

The latter fact may have contributed to the unpopularity of the Mamiya
line of 35 mm SLRs. I think there were 3 incompatible versions of the
lenses with the Mamiya name on them. They were one of the first to
come out with a bayonet mount, but they never really followed up with a
"system" of "professional" equipment, like its competitors.

Whatever the reasons, the upshoot is that few (no?) 3rd party
lensmakers offered lenses. Tamron *might* have made an Adapt-all mount
for this line. In case you didn't know, Tamron lenses have
interchangable mounts, so in principle, you could use the same glass on
different manufacturers' bodies if you had the correct
mounts/interfacing gizmos.

I saw a M/S XE1000 (?) at a local shop last year. It came with the
50/2 or 50/1.7 for $90ish. Given the limited market, I would guess
that it's still there, but that they won't sell just the lens. FWIW, I
thought the camera was in good enough condition, but had only an
aperature-priority mode or a metering system which showed a limited
range of shutter speeds. For this reason, I didn't recommend it to a
friend looking for a cheap all-manual SLR. For a beginner or somebody
who knows exactly what they want, the camera is very functional. The
problem for the beginner is the low resale value and the lack of
expansion capability.

jt

No opinions that my employer would acknowledge.