Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Mamiya C22

Mamiya · Mamiya TLR mount · 6×6cm on 120 film, 12 exposures; 220 (24 exposures) with the separate 220 back on most bodies, and a single-sheet holder (English Wikipedia; camera-wiki; Patterson) · 1966

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Mamiya C22 · Mamiya C22 Professional · Mamiya C-22 · Mamiyaflex C22 · マミヤ C22 · マミヤ C22プロフェッショナル · マミヤフレックス C22

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
C22 Professional Mamiya TLR 1966–1968 — No figure published by any source consulted
  1. The set and body prices in yen come from one hobbyist's model list on the shiura.com forum (post 993, 2017); no other source consulted prints them, so they are single-source. No US price was found.
  2. Weight: 1,480 g is the only published figure (English Wikipedia's table; Patterson, body only). Shiura.com's 'about 300 g lighter than the C33' agrees with it against the C33's 1,810 g. No dimensions were found.
  3. 220: English Wikipedia says the C33 and C22 were the first Mamiya TLRs to take 220 with a different back; camera-wiki says 220 back versions were available; Patterson says most C22s could take the 220 back without modification but the earliest could not, and that 220 film only reached the market in late 1965 and early 1966.
  4. The end year, 1968, is the C220's introduction in every source; camera-wiki's article and GotFilm print 1966–68 and Patterson prints 1968 with a question mark.
  5. The Photo Nerd's C22 page repeats its C2 text, including six interchangeable finders and five screens, which no reference source supports for the C22; those claims are not carried.
  6. No production figure was found.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Nameplate 'Mamiya C22 Professional'
  • Knob wind on a Mamiya-named body in the C33's shell: the C33 and C3 have a crank, the C2 says Mamiyaflex, and the C220 that followed is a smaller body with a folding crank in the knob
  • Cocking lever on the lens that must be moved before every exposure
  • Removable back with a covered red window; the C220 has a fixed back with a rotating pressure plate instead

C22 Professional:

  • 'Mamiya C22 Professional' nameplate; advance knob on the right with a ratchet and automatic stop, no crank unless the accessory crank is fitted (camera-wiki; shiura.com)
  • Shutter cocked by a lever on the lens; no self-cocking and no parallax needle in the finder (Japanese Wikipedia)
  • Film counter on the left side in a larger window than the C2's; the film-speed reminder no longer on the advance dial; no release button on the wind (camera-wiki)
  • Lens lock knob on the right side; lens scales on both sides of the bellows, 65 and 80mm on the right (camera-wiki)
  • Red window with a cover on the 120 back; Mamiya's covering with the tiny raised M, no leatherette (camera-wiki)
  • Serial with an S prefix on 220-capable bodies, or none; Patterson's letter codes DI and DK (Patterson)

Specifications

Format
6×6cm on 120 film, 12 exposures; 220 (24 exposures) with the separate 220 back on most bodies, and a single-sheet holder (English Wikipedia; camera-wiki; Patterson) · 12 on 120; 24 on 220 with the 220 back exposures
Finder
fixed folding waist-level hood with magnifier and sports finder; the C-series Porrofinder and prism fit in its place · no automatic indicator: the parallax display and self-cocking are the C33 features left off (Japanese Wikipedia); correction is by the scales on the bellows standard, and the Paramender tripod accessory shifts the camera by the lens separation parallax correction
Shutter
none in body; leaf shutter in each lens pair — Seikosha-S on the chrome lenses, Seiko on the black series; cocked by hand with a lever on the lens · 1s–1/500, B · flash sync all speeds (leaf shutter); X and M selector on the lens
Film advance
knob with ratchet and automatic frame stop, redesigned from the C2 without a release button (camera-wiki; shiura.com); an accessory crank was optional (English Wikipedia; camera-wiki); no interlock between wind and shutter
Back
removable back with a covered red window on the 120 back; a 220 back on most bodies and a single-exposure sheet-film holder (camera-wiki; Patterson)
Meter
none
Motor drive
Not compatible
Weight
1480 g
Dimensions
1,480 g from English Wikipedia's table and Patterson's summary, Patterson as body only; no dimensions published by any source consulted mm
Country
Japan
Original price
¥40,000 for the set with 105mm f/3.5 and case (¥39,000 + ¥1,000), body only ¥24,300, March 1966 — from a model list on the shiura.com camera forum, single source (today ¥170,000)
Accessories
Lens pairs: 65mm f/3.5, 80mm f/2.8, 105mm f/3.5, 135mm f/4.5, 180mm f/4.5 in the chrome Seikosha-S series, with the 55mm f/4.5 and 250mm f/6.3 of the black series following (camera-wiki; Patterson) · 220 back and single-exposure sheet-film holder (camera-wiki; Patterson); accessory advance crank (English Wikipedia; camera-wiki) · Porrofinder and prism finder, finder masks, Paramender, grips, lens hoods (C-series accessories that fit this body)

Fixed focusing screen (Patterson: no interchangeable screens on the '2' series). No meter.

What reviewers say

History

The C22 of March 1966 is the Mamiya C33 with the automation taken out. Mamiya split the twin-lens line that year into a Professional ‘3’ series and a budget ‘2’ series, and the C22 is the first of the budget bodies to carry the Mamiya name rather than Mamiyaflex: the C33’s shell, its interchangeable lens pairs, bellows and straight film path, and its removable back for 120, 220 or single sheets, but with a ratchet knob in place of the crank, the shutter cocked by a lever on each lens instead of by the wind, and no parallax needle in the finder. A Japanese forum list that quotes the period prices puts the relationship in Leica terms, the M2 to the C33’s M3: ¥40,000 for the set with the 105mm f/3.5 against ¥49,800. English Wikipedia gives 1,480 g against the C33’s 1,810 g, and the same list says about 300 g lighter.

Against the Mamiyaflex C2 it replaced, camera-wiki lists the changes: the advance no longer needs a release button, the film-speed reminder came off the knob, the counter moved to a larger window on the left, the lens lock knob went to the right side, and the covering became Mamiya’s own material with the tiny raised M. An accessory crank could be fitted to the knob. The 220 question needs care. Every source agrees the C33 and C22 were the first Mamiya TLRs to take 220, by a separate back, but Graham Patterson’s reading of a C33 repair manual is that the earliest C22s could not, that most could because the C22 arrived as 220 film did in late 1965 and early 1966, and that an S-prefix serial marks a 220-capable body without being a guarantee. Two years later the C220 of April 1968 shrank the body by about 700 g, put a folding crank in the knob and built the 220 capability into a fixed back with a rotating pressure plate, and the C22 was gone.

Numbers beyond the weight and the price are absent: no dimensions, no production figure, and no US list price were found. The shutters are the lens pair’s, 1 second to 1/500 and B on the Seikosha-S chrome lenses and the Seiko black series, with X and M sync at any speed. The lenses are the whole system’s, from the 65mm f/3.5 to the 180mm f/4.5 in chrome and the 55mm and 250mm that followed in black, and any of them fits any later body, which is the C22’s real value: the cheapest of the full-size bodies that takes the entire line.

Buying one is buying a lens and a transport. The shutter, cocking lever and sync selector travel with the lens, so a lazy slow speed or a cocking lever that has been forced is a lens fault; Gregory Couch’s warning is that the Seiko shutters are hard to get serviced. The body’s faults are the bellows at full extension, the back catch and the knob’s spacing, and, as with every hand-cocked Mamiya, the habit the camera demands: there is no interlock, so a forgotten lever is a blank frame and a forgotten wind is a double exposure. Parallax at portrait distance is read from the scales on the standard, not shown in the finder, and the Paramender is the accessory that makes close framing exact. No battery is involved anywhere.

Only two reviews of the C22 itself were found. Couch shoots his with the 80mm f/2.8, the 65mm and the 180mm and likes its simplicity next to the C220 and C330, with the 180mm the standout and the weight the cost; The Photo Nerd files it, in the same words used for the C2, as a studio camera twice the size of an early Rolleiflex. That is the fair summary: a C33 without the conveniences, at a C220 price, for someone who wants the bigger removable-back body and does not mind cocking the lens.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

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Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $220 across 18 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-21 (middle half $180–$260). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 17 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-21. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Mamiya C220 · Mamiya C3 / C33 · Mamiya C330 · Mamiyaflex C / C2

Sources (12)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.