Sanibel Island w/the Mamiya 645 1000s

I recently made a trip down to Sanibel Island, Florida. This part of Southwest Florida is known as one of the best places in the world for seashells. My wife is an avid shell hunter, so this was the perfect location for our anniversary trip.

I brought my Mamiya 645 1000s, a medium format film camera to document the trip. The M645 is a great size for travel, you get 15 shots of a roll, and the image quality is great. I shot Kodak Gold 200 and Kodak Porta 400 film.

Film photography is really expensive these days, but this camera is relatively affordable in the realm of medium format cameras. I usually prefer using my Mamiya RB67, but it’s much larger and only shoots 10 photos per roll. The 645 format gives you the most bang for your buck.

In late September of 2022, this part of Florida was absolutely devastated by Hurricane Ian. I’ve never seen this magnitude of damage, the entire town of Fort Meyers was destroyed. It was really sad to see so many peoples homes and businesses in piles of rubble.

I’m hoping this part of Florida will be able to rebuild soon. The sense of community in this area is strong, the people are unbelievably kind, and it’s a beautiful place to be.

I brought two lenses for the Mamiya 645. The sekor 80mm 2.8 and the Sekor 150mm f4. I rarely take the 80mm off my camera. The lens is really sharp and it gives the equivalent field of view of a 50mm on full frame. If you come across this camera for sale there’s a good chance it will be paired with this lens, it’s considered the standard.

A suggestion for portrait photographers, seek out the Mamiya Sekor 80mm 1.9 lens. It’s one of the fastest lenses made for medium format film cameras and has a wonderful reputation for the way it renders images. For the rest of us, the 2.8 version is plenty fast and produces nice photos.

If you want to learn more about the Mamiya 645 1000s, check out the review I did on my YouTube channel.