C41
Kodak Gold 200
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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The Mamiya 16 is a subminiature camera introduced around 1949, designed to shoot 16mm film in a dedicated drop-in cartridge. It is among the earlier Japanese entries in the subminiature category, competing with the established Minox and a growing field of Japanese 16mm designs including the Steky and later the Minolta-16. The camera is compact enough to fit in a shirt pocket, uses zone focusing, and has a simple leaf shutter with a limited speed range. It lacks a rangefinder and meter, making exposure a matter of estimation. The Mamiya 16 was aimed at both general consumers wanting a pocketable everyday camera and at users drawn to the discretion offered by a very small format.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 16mm format your camera takes.
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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Kodak UltraMax 400 is a versatile consumer-grade ISO 400 daylight-balanced color negative film with T-grain emulsion, delivering warm Kodak colors, fine-for-speed grain (PGI 46), and wide exposure latitude. Currently in production and available globally as a single-roll and multi-pack.
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Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
Develop 16mm film
Labs in our directory that process 16mm film.
Before you buy used
About this camera
Compact Japanese subminiature using 16mm cartridge film, aimed at discreet and everyday carry use.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 16mm cartridge (subminiature) |
| Mount | Fixed lens |
| Years | ~1949 - ~1955 |
| Lens | ~25/3.5 or ~25/2.8 |
| Shutter | ~1/25s - 1/100s + B, leaf |
| Flash sync | ~None on base model |
| Meter | None |
| Modes | Manual |
| Weight | ~150 g |
| Battery | None |
Mamiya introduced the 16 in 1949 as part of a broader Japanese industry push into subminiature formats. The postwar period saw strong consumer interest in compact cameras, and 16mm subminiatures occupied the smallest and most pocketable end of the market. Minox had established the benchmark with its Latvian-designed (and later West German-produced) subminiature, but the high cost and limited film availability of Minox cassettes created space for Japanese alternatives that used more accessible 16mm cartridges.
The Mamiya 16 used a proprietary cartridge format distinct from Minox, which was common among Japanese subminiature makers of the era - each manufacturer devised its own loading system. The camera sold modestly and was followed by the Mamiya 16 Automatic, which added an automatic exposure system, making the original 16 effectively obsolete for most users by the mid-1950s.
The Mamiya 16 is part of a remarkable mid-century Japanese subminiature boom that included designs from Minolta, Ricoh, and several smaller manufacturers. It demonstrates that Mamiya, best known for medium-format cameras, briefly pursued the opposite end of the format spectrum. While the camera never achieved the iconic status of the Minox or the commercial success of the Minolta-16, it is a coherent design that fills out the history of Japanese camera manufacturing in the early postwar period.
From a collector standpoint, the 16 is interesting as the founding subminiature in the Mamiya line and as a relatively uncommon example compared to the better-documented Mamiya 16 Automatic. Its practical value for contemporary film photography is limited by the difficulty of sourcing and processing 16mm subminiature film in the correct cartridge format.
C41
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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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →Mamiya 16
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