Mamiya and the Digital Revolution

Along with Hasselblad, Pentax, Contax, Bronica and some other companies, Mamiya used to be a dominant player in the medium format segment of the camera industry.

The medium format segment is comprised of those cameras which use 6*6, 6*4,5 and 6*7 cm film. The segment has always been very small in relation to the camera industry, only about 1-3 percent of all cameras sold have been medium format cameras. It has always been a niche market for professional photographer.

On September 1, 2006, the Mamiya camera business was sold to Cosmo Digital and formed a new company, Mamiya Digital Imaging.

The shift to digital imaging had created a lot of problems for the company.

Let’s go back in time and take a look at what happened to Mamiya.

Mamiya emerged after the second world war as a low cost alternative to Rollei. The Mamiya camera was not as small or smooth, but it was reasonably cheap and unlike Rollei had interchangeable lenses. Over the years, Mamiya kept improving their products and emerged as a formidable competitor to Hasselblad, for instance in the segment for wedding photography.

Over the years, thousands of wedding memories have been captured by Mamiya cameras.

It was actually in Mamiya’s segment that digital imaging started to prosper in the early 1990s.

Some of the first digital imaging technology came from Leaf Systems.

Leaf produced digital backs, which could be attached to Hasselblad cameras instead of film.

It looked like this.

Yes, big and bulky.

But the business utility was great. Many film photos were digitized sooner or later anyway. With a digital back, one step in the production of photos could be removed.

The first digital backs were expensive and had a moderate performance. The first one by Leaf had 4 Megapixels and Kodak launched one with 6 Mpixels.

But the performance was good enough for some applications.

Press and Studio photographers loved it and NASA was very interested in the Kodak sensor.

Digital imaging had other attributes which made it attractive.

An infinite amount of photos could be taken and then be replicated, manipulated and sent, at a very low cost.

So the business utility of a digital back which cost maybe 30 000 dollars was still big.

And the image quality was Good Enough, as long as the photos were not enlarged.

Despite the fact that digital imaging actually had a high business utility in these early days, none of the established medium format companies succeeded in developing their own digital backs.

Instead, many companies were created around the idea to develop digital backs for established medium format players.

Leaf…

Imacon…

Sinar…

Kodak also developed some digital backs…

Phase One…

During the 1990s, these companies kept selling digital backs which could be attached to medium format cameras.

The analogue medium format was still healthy, though the segment kept shrinking due to the improved performance of smaller cameras.

The next big thing in this segment was autofocus. Mamiya, Hasselblad, Contax and the others sought to develop this new feature in the late 1990s.

Mamiya introduced autofocus in the 645 AF 4.5×6 SLR in 1999.

Having done so before Hasselblad, the company obtained an increased market share in this decreasing market.

Together with back manufacturers, Mamiya was able to deliver a digital system at an early point. However, this did by no means guarantee the long term survival of the company.

The Nikon D1 launched 1999 was the first true alternative for most photographers who wanted digital cameras. It was mortal to many of the old camera firms…

The digital SLR cameras from Canon and Nikon were cheaper, lighter and good enough.

These companies invested massively in R&D and generated cheaper and more advanced models at a furious pace.

Within a few years, Hasselblad and Mamiya lost the entire wedding photography segment to Canon.

Thus, the medium format segment shrank even further with the shift to digital imaging and this put Mamiya in some great trouble.

Collaborating with Leaf and providing great but very expensive products was simply not enough.

However, Mamiya went further in this direction – in 2004 the company announced the Mamiya ZD and the Mamiya ZD digital back.

These products were severely delayed. It is very hard for a small company with shrinking revenues to develop new products, especially in such a competitive market.

The Mamiya ZD was not launched until early 2006 and by then, the SLR models from Canon and Nikon had reached a performance level which implied that few customers demanded an expensive, fantastic but big camera.

Thus, the efforts which was put into these products did not result in improved financial results.

The situation was now desperate and Mamiya announced in early 2006 that the camera division was for sale.

Mamiya had up until this point been regarded as a survivor since competitors like Bronica and Contax had already left the industry. Things change rapidly in an industry which has become digital…

Mamiya was bought by Cosmo digital imaging, an IT company.

The idea was to combine software skills with Mamiyas skills in imaging and thereby regain lost ground.

New lenses were launched in 2006 and Mamiya initiated a close collaboration with the Danish digital back manufacturer Phase One.

The previous collaboration with Leaf resulted in the launch of the DL28 in late 2008. Priced at 15 000 USD, the camera offered improved autofocus and a better integration with the digital back of 28 Megapixels.

This sounds promising, given that the price of medium format cameras has been a critical issue before, this camera may help Mamiya to recover.

The collaboration with Phase One resulted in the Mamiya 645, which was also launched under the Phase One brand.

Just recently, in March 2009, Phase One announced that the company will invest in Mamiya.

“We are committed to providing open, upgradable medium format camera systems, so that pro photographers can enjoy the maximum flexibility and versatility at an attractive cost of ownership” // Henrik O. Håkonsson, President, Phase One.

“Furthering our relationship with Mamiya Digital Imaging that we initiated in 2006, we continue to design a broad range of new cameras, digital backs and lenses that will offer the world’s leading photographers greater choice and satisfaction.”

Together, Phase One and Mamiya Digital Imaging own all competencies required for developing superior, innovative medium format camera systems. Our combined expertise comprises digitalization, camera fine mechanics, optics design and production and broad ranges of software and firmware capabilities.” // Toshio Midorikawa, President of Mamiya Digital Imaging.

“This investment by Phase One enables us to better optimize our complementary capabilities to the benefit of our customers. And as a result of our close collaboration, new products are just around the corner. We plan to introduce both new leaf shutter lenses and even more super lightweight focal plane shutter lenses in 2009.  We aim to offer the world’s widest range of medium format lenses for Mamiya and Phase One.”

Whether this will help Mamiya out of their trouble remains to be seen. For sure, this is a step in the right direction. However, the SLR cameras from Canon and Nikon are getting better each year and the medium format market keeps shrinking…

This story is a bit puzzling – there was a financial logic in developing digital backs long before the real shift to digital imaging, yet still Mamiya never captured this market but instead left it to companies like Leaf, Imacon, Phase One and Jenoptik.

Why?

The main reason is probably that Mamiya had a competence base which was related to precise mechanics and optics, not electronics. Therefore, the company did not have and failed to develop the capabilities needed to launch digital backs themselves.

By looking inside a product you get an idea what the company and its knowledge are really all about.

With the shift to digital imaging, much of Mamiya’s competence base lost its value and thus, the company encountered great problems.

Sources The online photographer The British Journal of Photography Digital Photography Review

Image attributions

Christian Sandström is a PhD student at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He writes and speaks about disruptive innovation and technological change. www.christiansandstrom.org christian.sandstrom@chalmers.se