Thanks to good fortune, a faulty camera, and eBay search alerts I have a Mamiya ZD in my hands. It’s worth thanking the photographer from Cyprus who sold me the camera as well. My first time buying a camera from Cyprus and there were no hiccups. Here are my first impressions using the camera for the last month.
Mamiya ZD Body Overview
The Mamiya ZD isn’t exactly the rarest digital camera, but it’s up there. Reportedly there were less than 2,000 copies produced. It was never sold in the United States. On any given day there’s 2-3 for sale online somewhere. These range anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000. I purchased mine for under $1,000 with a lens, but I’ll get to why that was in a minute. Needless to say at that price I couldn’t refuse.
The camera body is a large, heavy, chunky lump of mixed materials. There’s plastic bits like the CF/CD card door, metal bits like the bottom and top plate, and even what looks like a brass plate on the side. Mine has what looks like some brassing developing, and pictures I’ve seen online of others shows this as well.
Overall I would say the build quality is good, but really not any better than an enthusiast level APS-C or Full frame DSLR from the era. The worst part is clearly the CF/CD card door, which feels plasticky cheap and the clip action is unreliable. The buttons, including the shutter button, are similarly disappointing. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but for a camera that MSRP was $22,000, I expected something more.
But nitpicks aside the camera overall feels and looks good. There’s a deep grip that makes the camera very easy to handhold. This really isn’t what the camera is best suited for, but it is the style I’ve shot with it most so far.
Medium Format DALSA Sensor
It uses a 22mp CCD sensor made by DALSA. Not a name you hear often anymore associated with modern consumer cameras. They still produce imaging sensors, but mostly for industrial or medical purposes. They do have some interesting articles on their website though, including a CCD vs CMOS one that’s worth a read. I am still digging up information on this sensor and any other cameras it may have been used in. Mamiya did release a digital camera back for their existing Mamiya 645 film bodies, which would use the same sensor.
The sensor is 36mm x 48mm in size. This makes it larger the later Pentax 645 digital sensor sizes and the current Fujfilm GFX series. Not that sensor size matters, right? I’m just trying to squeeze in a win over those other great camera systems. It is smaller than the largest digital medium format sensors like Phase One puts in their cameras.
By the way, this puts the crop factor at 0.721. That means my Mamiya 645 AF 55mm f2.8 lens that came in my lot is something like a 40mm f2 in full frame terms. Last week I picked up a Mamiya 120mm F4 macro for a great deal. That’s like a 90mm f2.8.
However, and I always like to point this out, while the crop factor applies to the aperture for depth of field equivalence, the light gathering remains the same as the physical aperture. I’m picky about this because I almost always care more about the amount of light and how it changes my exposure more than depth of field equivalence between formats. There are few Mamiya lenses faster than f2.8. Not a big deal with film where you can use high quality 800 speed film, but it’s a different story on this digital camera.
Image Quality Impressions
The Mamiya ZD supports ISOs from 50 to 800. The base ISO 50 is where you want to stay if you care about noise. Even bumped up to ISO 160 the noise levels jumped significantly. While the noise levels get heavy fast, the noise pattern from my initial tests seems quite pleasant. I am a bit of a junky for CCD digital noise anyway. Still, it means I can’t shoot the camera indoors without a flash or strong light. Once again reiterates that this is more of a studio camera.
When the light is good and you can get the shutter speed high enough for handheld shots, the photographs are really nice. I need to shoot the camera in more situations, but so far the colors are very natural straight out of the camera. Almost muted. There doesn’t seem to be any over saturating or over sharpening even on the JPEGs. The RAW files stretch surprisingly well for their age. Supporting members always get access to RAW files from all my reviews, and you get to choose how much to donate.
How I Got This Camera So Cheap
I forgot to mention why the camera was so cheap. The seller listed it as having an issue where the mirror would get stuck up. I did some research, and it seemed like if this happened you could hit the mirror lock up button to reset it. At the worst I thought it would be annoying, and slow down an already very slow camera. But I’ve been using it for a month now and haven’t had this issue once.
By the way, I wrote a whole ebook about getting sweet deals on used camera gear. And it’s free.
Overall I’m stoked about this camera. You know me, I’m into older digital cameras and CCD sensors. But I’m also into rare cameras you don’t see everyday and I love that I get to share them with you. There’s not much information about this camera being used today, and I’m excited to cover it more.
Does the camera make sense to buy nowadays? No. Not even for $800, honestly. Think about it. A Pentax K-1 can be had used for $800 and offers WAY more functionality and image quality. You even get to fuel the vintage lens addiction with the K mount, and it’s a DSLR and not mirrorless. This camera purchase was less about filling a gap in my camera lineup and more getting something very special. Something I am excited to get many great pictures with. And my guess is most of you reading this get that idea.
Happy snappin’
-james
OMG you got the unicorn!! My friend Jim has one (actually two :P) and it is a beast but so cool and definitely a collectors item. Well done.
Thank, Ali! I never thought I’d be able to grab one for so cheap. I’ve been eying the 645D for a while, but I guess I’m going down this route for now. Very cool piece of digital camera and Mamiya history.