C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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The Mamiya Six IV is the final variant in Mamiya's original folding Six series, produced around 1955 and representing the mature form of the line that began with Mamiya's founding camera in 1940. Like its predecessors, it is a self-erecting folding 6x6 medium-format camera producing 12 exposures on 120 roll film, with a fixed lens in a leaf shutter and a coupled rangefinder using Mamiya's distinctive prismatic viewfinder design. The Six IV is the last true Mamiya folding camera before the company moved entirely to its professional modular systems (the C-series twin-lens reflexes and later the Press line).
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the — format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →C41
Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
View profile →C41
Kodak Ektar 100 is a fine-grain C-41 color negative film with saturated color and high sharpness.
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About this camera
The last of Mamiya's folding 6x6 cameras: refined postwar construction, prismatic rangefinder, Lausar optics.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 120, 6x6 cm (12 frames) |
| Mount | Fixed lens |
| Years | ~1955-~1958 |
| Lens | ~75mm f/3.5 Mamiya-Lausar (in Seikosha leaf shutter) |
| Shutter | 1s - 1/200s + B, Seikosha leaf |
| Flash sync | ~PC sync (some units) |
| Meter | None |
| Modes | Manual |
| Weight | ~750 g |
| Battery | None |
Mamiya Camera Co. was founded in 1940 by Seiichi Mamiya and Tsunejiro Sugawara, with the original Mamiya Six as the company's first product. The folding Six line ran through at least four recognized variants over approximately 15-18 years, with incremental refinements to construction, shutter specification, and lens coating as Japanese optical manufacturing recovered and modernized after the Second World War.
The Six IV, introduced around 1955, represents the culmination of this line. By the mid-1950s, Mamiya's commercial attention was shifting: the Mamiya C (twin-lens reflex, 1956) would soon define the company for the professional market, and the folding-camera segment was declining globally as 35mm cameras grew in popularity. The Six IV was not replaced within the folding Six family; it marks the end of that lineage. The name "Mamiya 6" would not appear again until the 1989 Mamiya 6 MF, an entirely different rangefinder design with interchangeable lenses.
The Mamiya Six IV is the closing chapter of Mamiya's founding camera line, making it of clear interest to collectors tracing the company's history. As a shooting camera, it offers:
Its prismatic rangefinder design is the most technically distinctive feature of the Six series. Where most contemporaries used a separate eyepiece for the rangefinder and a separate window for the viewfinder, Mamiya's prism arrangement combined these into a single optical path — unusual for the price class in which the Six competed.
For 2026 film photographers, the Six IV is a relatively affordable path to 6x6 on a compact folder. It is cheaper and more compact than a Rolleiflex TLR, and gives a coupled rangefinder that many German folders of similar price lacked. The main limitation is the non-interchangeable lens: there is only one focal length available, and the lens cannot be changed or adapted.
BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →Mamiya Six IV
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