The Mamiya RZ67 is hands down one the best medium format cameras ever made. In this video, Willem Verbeeck offers a relatively extensive review and breakdown of the Mamiya RZ67. For those that are not aware, I own the Mamiya RB67, the older, heavier, less-expensive, and more basic sibling to the Mamiya RZ67. I am a big fan of my camera but I must admit, over the years I have thought more than once about picking up an RZ. Why you ask? One small point that I think I may use but may not: the RZ is capable of shooting aperture priority mode with the prism finder whereas that was not an option for the RB. The bigger and the driving force behind my interest is in the lens selection. It is no secret that the RZ, newer as they are, have better coatings and strangely enough are a good deal cheaper than their RB counterparts when comparing two lens of the same focal length.
Why would someone with an RB make the change to the RZ after they've started building out their lens collection? Great question. The Mamiya RZ is fully capable of shooting with RB glass. The converse, however, is not true. The Mamiya RB67 can only shoot with RB glass. Though the two systems use the same mount, the RZ glass does not have a manual control of the shutter speed as it is built into the camera. Whereas, with the RB, both the aperture and shutter speed are both controlled on the lens.
At the time of writing, the Mamiya RZ67 has exploded in price over the past year. Less than 1 year ago, the local camera shop had multiple RZ67 ProII bodies and priced out a full kit for me for less than $1,000. I would not even dream of coming across that today. If you were at all interested in an RZ kit, I would say now is the time to buy as prices only seem to be getting higher and higher by the day.
What are your thoughts? Have you used the Mamiyz RZ67? What were your thoughts?
"The Mamiya RZ67 is hands down one the best medium format cameras ever made."
the camera is big, cumbersome, unwieldy and you have to cock it twice if i remember correctly. good thing you said its "one of the best". my money is on Contax 645, a sublime camera i owned and used commercially for many years
The RB needs to be cocked twice not the RZ. I've had mine for a year and aside from the size and weight issues, it's a great camera. I am however looking at a Hasselblad 500c/m just for the smaller size.
I've never had to cock my RB twice, it works with one lever action.
The RB needed to be cocked once, and the film advanced separately by a lever on the back . . . cumbersome, clunky. When I was in the heyday of my commercial career I used almost exclusively two RBs and a Sinar. I loved/hated the Mamiyas. The large transparency was beautiful, but the gear was, well, meh. The lenses were good, very good, but nowhere near as brilliant as Zeiss glass (which I also owned with a H'blad), and whilst I knew it wasn't about to happen, every time you did something with an RB it "clunked" . . . sounded like it was about to fall apart. It was, and still is a great camera. Too bulky, definitely a tripod only affair, but a good camera and the closest you might come to a tech camera in a relatively portable package.
It’s not even the best from Mamiya.
Written as if you have only ever read other reviews of either the RB or RZ. The RZ is the heavier camera, I've owned both and unless you desperate need the aperture priority feature there's no real gain. The RB is fully manual, the RZ needs a battery in order to function properly. Neither camera needs to be cocked twice.