Mamiya C33 Twin Lens Reflex
Mamiya C33 Professional is an interchangable lens TLR camera manufactured by Mamiya and produced between 1965-69.
Mamiya C series is a professional level of TLR medium format cameras. They have interchangeable lens system. This feature is on very few TLR cameras like Contaflex TLR and Koni-Omegaflex. Bellows focusing allows extreme close up photography, which is not easy with other TLRs. Auto cocking of the shutter feature is existent only on the C33 and the C330 series cameras.
Specifications
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- Film 120 roll, picture size 6x6cm
- Lens-Shutter assembly: interchangeable, accepts all Mamiya C-series TLR lenses
- Taking Lens: (in the pictures) Mamiya-Sekor 180 mm f/4.5, iris diaphragm, 4 elements in 3 groups, (an unique telephoto lens)
- Aperture: f/4.5-f/32, settings: on the lens-shutter assembly
- Focus range: 1.2-10m +inf
- Standart lens is 105mm f/3.5
- Focusing: Fresnel ground glass screen, bellows focusing
- Pointer in the viewfinder shows exposure increase which metered a hand posemeter, as bellows are extended and,
- Auto Parallax correction scale for the lens beeing used (for this purpose the parallax correction lever must be set as to the lens, left side of the camera)
- Focus knobs: two, bilateral, on the lowest front side of the camera
- Finder lens: (in the pictures) Mamiya-Sekor 180 mm, f/4.5
- Shutter: (in the pictures) [1] Seiko MX; Speeds: 1-1/500 +B, settings on the lens-shutter assembly
- Shutter release button: right lower front side of the camera, only works after film advance and operate once when Multiple exposure/film stop selector must be on Rollfilm (double exposure prevention), w/ cable release socket
- Shutter releasing is also possible by the lever on the Lens-Shutter assembly
- Caution: If there is no film in the camera the Shutter release button do not work, even with the shutter cocked
- Winding lever: also auto cocking of the shutter on the lens by an advance stroke, right side of the camera
- The shutter can be cocked by a lever on the lens/shutter assembly, but no film advance.
- Multiple exposure / film stop selector: in front of the winding lever,
- Viewfinder: (in the pictures) Porroflex finder Pat.Pend. M, eye level reflex mirror, image in correct orientation, manufactured by Nippon Kogaku(Nikon), Japan, Tokyo, an early version
- Interchangeable such as Waist level, Metered CDS Porrofinder, Prism finder and some others
- Standart finder is Waist level finder.
- Frame counter: left side, advance type, resets via opening the back cover
- Flash PC socket: on the lens-shutter assembly, beneath right side of the finder lens
- Flash sync: M, X, via a lever on the lens-shutter assembly
- Back cover: removable, w/ red window and built-in lid, to ascertain whether or not the camera contains film
- Cold-shoe
- Strap lugs
- Tripod socket: 1/4″
- Body: steel, very solid as rock; Weight: +2 kilograms
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Mamiya C33 c.1965 image by Süleyman Demir (Image rights) |
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Mamiya C33 c.1965 Images by Süleyman Demir (Image rights) |


Notes and references
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- ↑ There is different objectives between 55mm and 250mm which can be divided roughly into two series as chrome and black. The chrome series heve three different Seikosha shutters as MX, S and SLV. The black series have Seiko shutter. The only exception is black 80mm f//3.7 which has Copal shutter. The Seikosha-MX’s max speed is 1/400, all the others 1/500. In general all variations fit on all cameras.
Smaole photos:
Video Review:
Mamiya TLR System – Bodies
The Mamiya Flex name was used for a series of fixed lens twin-lens reflex cameras built from 1948 to about 1956. These had ‘A’ and ‘B’ designations, hence the ‘C’ in the interchangeable lens models. Refer to the Mamiya web page (Section 13) for details. The dates of manufacture are very difficult to confirm. Some references quote the date of announcement, others the date of first availability in a particular country. Further more, older models would still be available new for a period. The basic C220/C330 design, with minor modifications, lasted some 26 of the 38 year production history.
TLRgraphy: Mamiya TLR has a very very unique feature…. they are very very well-built, which means they are very very heavy!!