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 M645 (1975) is the founding camera of Mamiya's 645-format SLR system, producing 15 or 16 frames of 6x4.5 cm negatives on a 120 or 220 roll respectively. It was the first commercially successful interchangeable-lens 645-format SLR, offering medium-format negative area in a body and lens package that was meaningfully lighter and faster to handle than 6x6 or 6x7 systems. The body accepts interchangeable film magazines (120, 220, bulk), an optional motor winder, and a full range of Mamiya-Sekor C lenses. Metering is aperture-priority TTL via a CdS cell, with full manual override. There is no mechanical shutter fallback; the body requires batteries to operate.
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.
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Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
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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 original 645 SLR that defined a new format tier between 35mm and 6x6.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 120 / 220 - 6x4.5 cm (15 or 16 exp on 120 / 30-32 on 220) |
| Mount | Mamiya 645 bayonet |
| Years | 1975-1977 |
| Shutter | 1s - 1/500s + B, vertical metal focal-plane |
| Flash sync | 1/60s |
| Metering | TTL CdS, center-weighted average |
| Modes | Aperture-priority, manual |
| Finder | Pentaprism, ~0.95x coverage |
| Weight | ~1,050 g body only |
| Battery | 4x AA |
Mamiya released the M645 in 1975 to address a gap in the medium-format market. Professional photographers who wanted more negative area than 35mm but found the 6x6 Hasselblad system bulky and expensive had few alternatives. The 6x4.5 format, while smaller than 6x6 or 6x7, provides roughly 2.6x the negative area of 35mm, and Mamiya's decision to use a vertical focal-plane shutter allowed lens design to be simplified compared to in-lens-shutter systems like the RB67.
The base M645 was superseded in 1977 by the M645 1000S, which extended the top shutter speed to 1/1000s and added a few ergonomic refinements. Subsequent bodies - the M645 Super (1985), M645 Pro (1992), and later the autofocus 645 AF (1999) - all share the same lens mount, making every M645 lens usable across the entire system line.
The M645 established 6x4.5 as a viable professional format and demonstrated that medium-format SLR work did not require a Hasselblad budget. Fashion, portrait, and editorial photographers adopted it as a lighter studio alternative. The Mamiya 645 mount is one of the longest-lived lens mounts in medium format: lenses introduced in the 1970s for the original M645 work on the 645 AFD bodies produced in the 2000s, and via adapters are widely used on mirrorless digital cameras today. The base M645 body itself is now the least expensive entry into the 645 Mamiya system.
The Mamiya 645 mount accepts all Mamiya-Sekor C and later C/N, D, and AF lenses. Key primes for the original body (manual focus, leaf-shutter-free): 35/3.5, 45/2.8, 55/2.8, 80/1.9, 80/4 macro, 105/3.5, 110/2.8, 150/3.5, 150/4, 210/4, 300/5.6. The 80/1.9 is the fastest lens in the system and highly regarded. The 35/3.5 fisheye and 45/2.8 are popular wide options.
Accessories for the base M645: AE prism finder (standard), waist-level finder, chimney magnifier finder; 120 magazine, 220 magazine, Polaroid back; motor winder W-1; bellows unit; auto extension tubes.
BW
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
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