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

Mamiya-Sekor 250mm f/5 (Press)

Mamiya · Mamiya Press · 1967

Also known as: Mamiya-Sekor 250mm f/5 · Mamiya Sekor 250mm f5 Press · Mamiya Press 250mm f/5 · Mamiya Universal 250mm f5 · Mamiya Super 23 250mm f5 · Sekor 250/5 Press · マミヤプレス 250mm F5 · マミヤ セコール 250mm F5

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Mamiya-Sekor 250mm f/5 (1967, one version; Super 23 and Universal only) Mamiya Press 1967 — —
  1. Element and group counts, angle, minimum aperture, filter size, closest focus and weight are from the 1968 Super 23 manual, Mamiya's July 1970 lens sheet and the Bell & Howell/Mamiya brochures of 1976 and 1978. The 6-element, 4-group construction is repeated by camera-wiki, English Wikipedia and Japanese Wikipedia.
  2. The design type is disputed: camera-wiki calls it Ernostar type, English Wikipedia Sonnar type. Mamiya never names it, and no cross-section was found in any document consulted.
  3. The 250mm f/8 of the same range is a different lens: 6 elements in 4 groups too, but 55 mm filter, about 650 g, and not coupled to the rangefinder (Universal manual; 1970 sheet; English Wikipedia; camera-wiki). It has no page of its own here and is excluded from this page's listings.
  4. Picture angles are 22°50' (6×9) and 20° (6×7) in the 1968 manual, 22°50' and 20°10' in the 1970 sheet, 22.8° in the 1976 brochure. Closest focus is 8 ft from the film plane in the US literature and 2.5 m in Japanese Wikipedia; the family field uses 2.5 m.
  5. 1967 is the Super 23's launch (August 1967), whose Mamiya museum page lists the 250mm F5 as one of its interchangeable lenses; the 1968 Super 23 manual is the earliest document with its specification. No month for the lens itself, no price in yen or dollars, no production figure and no end date was found.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Engraved Mamiya-Sekor 1:5 f=250mm; 105 mm front thread and about 1.8 kg leave nothing else in the range to confuse it with, the f/8 being a 55 mm lens a third of the weight
  • Time lever with O and C markings; aperture 5 to 45; Seikosha #0 shutter, B and 1 to 1/500, M-X, cocked by hand on the lens
  • Framed by the 250 bright line of the Super 23 and Universal finder with automatic parallax correction; the finder mask for Polaroid has a removable insert for the 250 (1970 sheet)
  • Will not mount on the extension rings and is not sanctioned for the first-generation Press, 23 Deluxe or Standard 23 (1970 sheet: Universal and Super 23 only)

Mamiya-Sekor 250mm f/5 (1967, one version; Super 23 and Universal only):

  • Black barrel, 105 mm filter thread, 1,825 g with hood: the largest and heaviest lens in the range (1968 manual: 105 mm filter; 1976 brochure: 6 elements, f/45, 8 ft, 105 mm, 1,825 g)
  • Time lever marked O (open) and C (close) instead of the small lever on the shorter lenses (1968 manual)
  • Rangefinder coupled, unlike the 250mm f/8; supplied with hood and, later, its own case (Cat. No. 656001)

Specifications

Formula
6 elements in 4 groups (Ernostar type per camera-wiki; Sonnar type per English Wikipedia)
Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/5–f/45
Shutter
Seikosha #0 leaf shutter in the lens: B and 1s–1/500, M and X sync at every speed, cocked by hand on the lens; time lever marked O and C holds the blades open on B for ground-glass focusing
Min. focus
2.5 m
Weight
1825 g
Filter
105 mm
Years manufactured
1967
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.

History

The 250mm f/5 is the long lens of the Super 23 and Universal and the one piece of the Press system built without regard to the hand-held press camera it fits: 6 elements in 4 groups, a 105 mm filter thread, 1,825 g with the hood, and a closest focus of 8 ft from the film plane (2.5 m in Japanese Wikipedia). Mamiya’s own museum page for the Super 23 of August 1967 names it among that camera’s four interchangeable lenses, with the 65mm f/6.3, 100mm f/2.8 and 150mm f/5.6, and the 1968 Super 23 instruction manual is the earliest document to specify it, as the 250mm f/5 lens exclusively for Super 23, with its own hood and a 105 mm filter: 4 groups and 6 elements, picture angles of 22°50’ on 6×9 and 20° on 6×7, and f/45 at the small end. Mamiya’s July 1970 lens sheet repeats the angles, 8 feet and 105 mm and marks it for the Universal and Super 23 only; the 1976 Bell & Howell brochure adds 6 elements and 1,825 g. The shutter is the Seikosha #0 with B and 1 to 1/500 second and M-X sync, and on this lens the time lever is marked O and C: turn the dial to B, cock, move the lever fully to O and the blades stay open for the ground glass until it goes back to C.

It is the rangefinder-coupled 250. The older 250mm f/8 is also 6 elements in 4 groups but takes 55 mm filters, weighs about 650 g and does not couple, which the Universal manual and the 1970 sheet both flag; the f/5 couples on the Super 23 and Universal and is framed by the 250 bright line with automatic parallax correction, and the Polaroid finder mask has a removable insert for it. What the glass actually is remains a small argument: camera-wiki calls it an Ernostar type, English Wikipedia a Sonnar type, and Mamiya’s documents name no type and print no cross-section. There is one version in everything consulted, black with the 105 mm thread throughout. The 1978 brochure lists a case for it (Cat. No. 656001) and says, with the 75mm f/5.6, that it cannot be attached to the extension rings; the 1968 manual says the same and adds a depth-of-field table with the note that the precautions enclosed with the lens should be read before using it.

No review from the sites this catalogue indexes covers the 250mm f/5. Kikie Wilkins’s Emulsive double review of the Super 23 and Universal lists it among the focal lengths Mamiya made and says nothing else; Odd Cameras calls it big, massive and luminous for its length, at more than 1.8 kg; a Rangefinderforum thread on it could not be read from this container. The reviews field is therefore empty, and the verdicts that exist are on the system rather than the lens: Mamiya-Sekor optics that reviewers find sharp and contrasty, on a camera whose 0.72× rangefinder with a 61.2 mm effective base is being asked to focus a 250 at f/5.

That base is the buying question. At 8 ft and f/5 the depth of field is thin enough that the 1968 manual boxes the figures in red, so a lens and body should be checked together against the ground glass at close range and at infinity, and any error assigned to the body’s rangefinder before the lens is blamed. Then the usual Press checks: cock the shutter by hand, run the speeds, make sure the O/C lever opens on B and closes, look for haze between the groups and separation at the cemented pairs, and confirm the hood, both caps and the 105 mm filter, which is a size nothing else in the Press range uses. Weight and thread make it impossible to confuse with the f/8. No price in yen or dollars, no production figure and no discontinuation date was found for it in any document consulted.

Expand Collapse

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-Sekor 250mm f/5 (Press)
Mamiya-Sekor 250mm f/5 with its case — Zebrio (Brian Scott Peterson), uploaded by File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Mamiya-Sekor 250mm f/5 (Press)
The 250mm f/5 with hood, caps and 105 mm skylight filter — Zebrio, uploaded by File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Mamiya-Sekor 250mm f/5 (Press)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $220 across 16 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-21 (middle half $190–$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 10 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-Sekor 50mm f/6.3 (Press) · Mamiya-Sekor 65mm f/6.3 (Press) · Mamiya-Sekor 75mm f/5.6 (Press) · Mamiya-Sekor 90mm f/3.5 (Press) · Mamiya-Sekor 100mm f/2.8 (Press) · Mamiya-Sekor 100mm f/3.5 (Press) · Mamiya-Sekor 127mm f/4.7 (Press) · Mamiya-Sekor 150mm f/5.6 (Press)

Sources (15)

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.