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.
View profile →slr-35mm
The Mamiya Prismat NP (1961) is the first 35mm SLR Mamiya produced, marking the company's entry into the interchangeable-lens 35mm SLR market. It uses a proprietary Mamiya bayonet mount that was specific to the early Prismat series and was not carried forward into Mamiya's later M42-mount era. The camera is entirely mechanical, with no built-in metering whatsoever; exposure is set by sunny-16 or by a separate handheld meter. The horizontal cloth focal-plane shutter runs to 1/500s. The Prismat NP is rare on the used market and occupies primarily a collector and historical research niche rather than a practical shooting one.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 35mm 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 →BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →C41
Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
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About this camera
The camera that started Mamiya's 35mm SLR line: 1961, proprietary bayonet, no meter, all-mechanical.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm |
| Mount | Mamiya bayonet (proprietary, Prismat-era only) |
| Years | ~1961 - ~1965 |
| Shutter | 1s - 1/500s, mechanical horizontal cloth |
| Flash sync | ~ |
| Meter | None |
| Modes | Manual only |
| Weight | ~730 g |
| Battery | None required |
Mamiya's pre-SLR history was in twin-lens reflex cameras (the C-series TLRs), which had established the brand in the professional medium-format market. The Prismat NP represented a deliberate move into the 35mm SLR segment that Asahi Pentax, Nikon, and Canon were developing aggressively in the early 1960s. The proprietary bayonet mount was a common choice for early Japanese SLR makers who had not yet converged on M42 as a common thread standard; Mamiya subsequently abandoned this mount and adopted M42 for the Sekor 500 DTL and 1000 DTL bodies in the mid-1960s.
The Prismat line was short-lived. Mamiya quickly realized that a proprietary mount with limited lens selection was a competitive disadvantage, and the pivot to M42 gave access to the growing ecosystem of M42 lenses from multiple manufacturers. The original Prismat bayonet had no further development after the early 1960s.
The Prismat NP is significant primarily as a starting point: it is the camera that initiated a continuous 35mm SLR product line at Mamiya that would run through the M42 era (500 DTL, 1000 DTL), into the CS-mount era (NC1000, ZE, ZF, ZM), and finally to the CP-M in 1988. Without the Prismat, there is no Mamiya 35mm lineage to study. For lineage collectors assembling a complete Mamiya 35mm sequence, the Prismat NP is the required first body.
In terms of photographic use, the Prismat NP offers nothing that a better-documented M42 camera does not, with the added complication of an orphaned bayonet for which lens supply is extremely limited. Its value is historical, not practical.
Mamiya Prismat bayonet mount. The lens selection is very limited and poorly documented. Mamiya produced at least a standard 50mm lens for the mount; other focal lengths are unverified. No third-party lenses were produced in this mount. Adapters to modern systems do not appear to exist in commercial production.
BW
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
View profile →C41
Kodak Ektar 100 is a fine-grain C-41 color negative film with saturated color and high sharpness.
View profile →Mamiya Prismat NP
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