Mamiya RB67 Pro1968

History

Mamiya introduced the RB67 Pro in 1968 to address the professional studio and wedding photography market that had previously been served by 4x5 view cameras and twin-lens reflex cameras. The 6x7 format produced a negative large enough for magazine-cover reproduction while a roll-film SLR was considerably faster to operate than sheet-film view equipment. The rotating back was the feature that differentiated the RB67 from its primary competitors - the Pentax 67, which required rotating the entire heavy body for vertical shooting, offered no equivalent.

The original Pro body had one significant operational limitation compared to its successor: the film-advance and mirror-reset interlock mechanism was less refined, making double-exposure prevention and sequential shooting slightly more prone to sequencing errors. Mamiya addressed this with the Pro-S in 1974. The two bodies share the same RB-mount lenses and film backs, so a Pro body can be serviced and used with Pro-S accessories.

Why It Matters

The original RB67 Pro established the core design that Mamiya would refine but never fundamentally alter across three decades. All three generations - Pro, Pro-S, Pro-SD - share the same rotating-back bellows-focus architecture and the same lens mount. Lenses made for the 1968 body work on 1990 Pro-SD bodies and vice versa, which is unusual longevity for a proprietary medium-format system.

For working photographers, the original Pro is the lowest-cost entry point to the RB67 system. It shoots identically to the Pro-S and produces the same 6x7 negatives. The mechanical simplicity - no electronics, no batteries, leaf shutters in the lenses - makes it highly repairable and durable. The tradeoff is the less-refined interlock compared to the Pro-S, which matters most for high-volume sequential shooting.

Lenses & Accessories

Mamiya RB mount (also called Mamiya RB-C mount for the Sekor C series). All Mamiya-Sekor C and K/L lenses are compatible with the original Pro body. Common choices:

• 65mm f/4.5 (wide, roughly 33mm equivalent in full-frame terms)
• 90mm f/3.8 (standard kit lens, roughly 45mm equivalent)
• 127mm f/3.8 (portrait-length, roughly 64mm equivalent)
• 180mm f/4.5 (telephoto portrait)
• 250mm f/4.5 (long telephoto)

Film backs available in 120 and 220 formats, plus a 6x4.5 reducing back. Polaroid film backs were widely used for studio proofing before digital. Prism finders (plain and AE) mount in place of the waist-level hood; the AE prism adds TTL metering.

Sample Photographers / Notable Use

• Studio portrait and commercial photographers, late 1960s through the 1970s.
• Wedding studios adopted the RB67 line (primarily Pro-S and later) through the 1970s-1990s as a primary format.
• The RB67 line broadly (all generations) is associated with photographers such as Annie Leibovitz (early Rolling Stone work) and David LaChapelle.

References

• Camera-Wiki: Mamiya RB67 - system documentation including generation differences
• Wikipedia: Mamiya RB67 - lineage overview