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

Mamiya N 80mm f/4 L (Mamiya 7)

Mamiya · Mamiya 7 · 1995

Also known as: Mamiya N 80mm f/4 L · Mamiya 80mm f/4 L · Mamiya 80mm f4 · N80mm f/4L · Mamiya 7 80mm · Mamiya 7II 80mm · マミヤ N 80mm F4L · マミヤ7 80mm · マミヤ 80mm F4

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Mamiya N 80mm f/4 L (single version, 1995–2014) · #00 electronic leaf shutter in the lens, timed by the body: 4s–1/500 and B Mamiya 7 1995–2014 — —
  1. Elements, groups, angle of view, minimum aperture, closest focus, magnification, filter size, dimensions and weight are the maker's own figures, identical in the 1995 Mamiya 7 manual (p. 27) and the Mamiya 7 II lens manual (p. 13), both hosted at butkus.org.
  2. The 1995 date is the camera's; the lens is in the launch manual, and no source gives a separate lens release date. The 2014 end date is Wikipedia's for the Mamiya 7 system as a whole.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • One optical version only, sold from the 1995 launch to the end of the system; a lens marked N 80mm f/4 L fits the Mamiya 7 and the 7 II alike
  • Not a Sekor: Mamiya's 80mm lenses for the 645 (f/1.9, f/2.8, f/4 macro) and the C-series TLR (f/2.8, f/3.7) are Sekors on other mounts, and the Mamiya 6's standard lens is a 75mm f/3.5 G
  • Manual gives 58° and a 39mm equivalent on 35mm film; reviewers round it to 40mm

Mamiya N 80mm f/4 L (single version, 1995–2014):

  • Engraved N 80mm f/4 L on the front ring; the smallest and lightest lens of the system at 56 mm long, 67 mm across and 290 g, with a 58 mm filter thread and a bayonet hood supplied (Mamiya 7 manual, p. 27)
  • Aperture ring 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22; rangefinder coupling lever; distance scale in m and ft with an infrared index mark; depth-of-field scale (Mamiya 7 II lens manual, nomenclature, drawn on this lens)
  • The body's finder brings up the 80mm bright frame automatically; the meter's quoted range (EV 3–18) is with this lens (Mamiya 7 manual, p. 30)

Specifications

Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/4–f/22
Shutter
#00 electronic leaf shutter in every Mamiya 7 lens, timed by the body's electronics: 4s–1/500 and B, X-sync at every speed, electro-magnetic release (Mamiya 7 manual, p. 30). No battery in the body, no exposure.
Min. focus
1 m
Dimensions
67 × 56 mm
Weight
290 g
Filter
58 mm
Years manufactured
1995–2014
Country
Japan
Coating
Multicoated (Mamiya 7 II lens manual, introduction)

What reviewers say

Optical formula

History

The N 80mm f/4 L is the standard lens of the Mamiya 7, the one the 1995 instruction book weighs the camera with (920 g bare, 1,210 g with the 80) and the one the lens manual draws when it labels the parts. It is the simplest and lightest lens in the line: 6 elements in 4 groups, 58° (a 39mm equivalent on 35mm film, which reviewers round to 40), f/4 to f/22, closest focus 1 m at 0.097× for a 580 × 719 mm field, a 58 mm filter thread, a bayonet hood in the box, 56 mm long by 67 mm across, and 290 g. The 1995 manual’s cross-section shows a compact near-symmetrical arrangement of two cemented pairs and two singlets; it is linked below rather than copied.

There is one version. The 80 was one of the four launch lenses of June 1995 with the 43, 65 and 150, and its figures are unchanged in the Mamiya 7 II lens manual after the body was revised in January 1999 (a tinted bright-frame finder, multiple exposure, a second strap lug; the lenses did not change). Like every Mamiya 7 lens it carries its own #00 electronic leaf shutter, timed by the camera through gold-plated contacts on the mount: 4 s to 1/500 and B, flash sync at every speed, and no exposure at all without the body’s 6 V battery. The body’s finder brings up the 80mm bright frame automatically and corrects parallax as the lens is focused; the meter’s quoted range of EV 3 to 18 is with this lens. Wikipedia gives 2014 as the end of the system. No serial ranges, production figures or list prices were found.

Reviewers agree on the glass. Drew Evans at Shoot It With Film calls it “incredibly sharp” and leaves it at that; Hari, who moved from a Pentax 67 to a 7 II, finds the lenses “razor sharp at all apertures” with coatings that handle flare better than older medium-format glass, and singles out the bright, contrasty rangefinder patch with the 80 mounted. Jacopo Brancati carried it as his standard lens through four Finnish winters and reports the sealed lenses and central shutter working in severe cold. The compromise everyone names is speed: f/4 is the fastest lens the system has, which Hari accepts as the price of a kit small enough to travel with.

What to check when buying is mostly the cement. Andrew on 35mmc received an 80 with “severe balsam separation”, unusable, and in his SWC comparison says that “many 80mm seem to suffer from haze and separation”; look through the lens against a bright light before paying. Beyond that: clean contacts on the rear mount, a shutter that fires at every speed on a body with a fresh battery, a rangefinder that agrees with the distance scale at 1 m and infinity, and the bayonet hood and rear cap present. The barrel is light and partly plastic, the standing complaint about Mamiya 7 lenses, set against optics nobody complains about. What remains open: the designer, the month it shipped, its price, and how many were made.

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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.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Mamiya N 80mm f/4 L (Mamiya 7)
Self-portrait — Mamiya 7 II, 80mm f/4, Ilford HP5 Plus (Monika Murren) — MonikaMurren, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Mamiya N 80mm f/4 L (Mamiya 7)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $4,200 across 18 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-19 (middle half $1,900–$7,000). First day tracked.

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

Show 20 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 2026-09-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Mamiya N 150mm f/4.5 L (Mamiya 7) · Mamiya N 43mm f/4.5 L (Mamiya 7) · Mamiya N 65mm f/4 L (Mamiya 7)

Sources (12)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, 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.