As aluded to at the end of Hot Mamiya summer, in August I finally fell for the hype and bought a Mamiya 7 off a friend.

I justified it as I had fully fallen in love with the Mamiya 6 over the past couple months, and I would probably like the 7. The Mamiya 7 is the younger, bigger brother of the Mamiya 6, shooting 6x7 negatives with a (relatively) compact body, instead of square negatives. It is also the most meme camera out there, as it is regularly hyped on youtube and instagram by high follower count influencers. It is also a very good camera. I fell in love immediately.

The day I picked it up I decided to bring it to GraphicArt to have it inspected. As luck would have it, the original destributor for Mamiya in the DACH region (DGermany Austria CHSwitzerland) is a 10 minute tram ride from my office and they still have a Mamiya technician. The Mamiya 7 is famously brittle and the rangefinder can get out of sync, and tilting it around I could hear some rattling that made me nervous. The technician told me that this is actually normal. Ok! I shot a test roll of aerocolor (reflx lab pro 100 pro) around the river near their office:

Ok phew it does actually work.

Göscheneralpsee

Shortly after the mam7 came into my possesion, my parents arrived. We were supposed to do a 5 day hiking tour, but unfortunately my dad hurt his knee and was going to have to take it easy. I invited my mom to come hike around Göscheneralpsee with Matt, Kaan, and Ferran, and brought the Mamiya 7 and 65mm. I wound up shooting way too many rolls.

I started off with a roll of gold. Holy moly 10 frames goes so fast

Then a roll of ektar, although the light was starting to get harsh:

My Mamiya 7 came with the pano adapter, and I spent the next couple rolls figuring that out. I decided to try shooting it without the mask to expose over the sprocket holes, which looks corny but is always something I've wanted to try: 

Finally, I loaded a roll of 800T but forgot to switch the mam7 from 220 mode (for the 35mm film, which doesn't have 120's backing paper) to 120. So I opened the back and switched it, but as a result burned most of the roll :(

Anyways that was a lot of pictures of the same place. Sorry. But I was excited!

220

I then wanted to try 220, just to practice getting it on the developing spiral again. It was a struggle the first time, and it was a struggle the second time. Still, very cool to see 20 6x7 negatives on a single roll.  

Mamiya 6 again at Aletsch

I felt bad about spending so much time with the Mamiya 7 and neglecting my Mamiya 6, so I took him on a hike with my parents around Aletsch glacier:

Ok, just going to cut it off here and make a fall pt. 2 because I still have so many more Mamiya pictures, non-Mamiya pictutres from when my parents were here, my trip to West England, and the final hike of fall hiking season to cover :( and I'm writing this in 2026!