Mamiya 16 Automatic film cassettes

My last cassette just gave up the ghost, and currently my only chance of shooting with this camera seems to be by using just the take up spool, without the film one. Got good results this way with my Edixa 16. But it's not how these cameras were supposed to work, so I like to get some spares if possible.

Does anyone know where to get some of these cassettes? Are there any other 16mm cassettes compatible with this camera? Thank you, appreciated !

There are 3D printed ones available on Ebay

Here's the one I got, haven’t got around to loading it yet - yes, I know I'm slow!

Flighter said:

My 3D printed cartridge arrived today.
View attachment 331916
I've got some velvet so may try and put some on as a light seal for the film entry/exit.
View attachment 331915
The covers for each spool compartment in the cassette have a raised ridge on the inside (blue arrow) which locates in a groove in the cassette body (green arrow) which keeps the caps in position without having to use tape - really neat!
View attachment 331918View attachment 331917

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Flighter said:

There are 3D printed ones available on Ebay

Here's the one I got, haven’t got around to loading it yet - yes, I know I'm slow!

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Thank you, appreciated. I am tad concerned about the exact measurements, seen a couple of various 3D'd carties around and they had issues with tight tolerances. Hopefully yours is all right, and I am awaiting for you to try it on .

There are "old" and "new" Mamiya cartridges, all are compatible. I made a page about the different cartriges https://www.subcompactcam.com/16mm_cartridges.htm here.

Sometimes the old ones show up on Ebay as 16mm cassettes or cartridges without their Mamiya name. Watch out. Look at sales of cheap or broken cameras, the sometimes come with a cartridge in them. Good luck!

Another consideration with 3D printed cassettes is whether the plastic is truly opaque.

mgb74 said:

Another consideration with 3D printed cassettes is whether the plastic is truly opaque.

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Never thought they wouldn't be. Thanks, there's another worry now

mgb74 said:

Another consideration with 3D printed cassettes is whether the plastic is truly opaque.

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Me neither! I had better give mine a go and load some film tomorrow and see how it goes.

Have a look at the summary of this Thingverse opacity tool project. If you can ask the film cassette maker what filament they use, maybe you can cross reference it with this list. The maker is mainly concerned with printing camera bodies, but it should also be good indicator of cassette opacity, which is even thinner than a camera body.

I 3D-printed mine using Proto-Pasta brand opaque black PLA filament. Even my entry-level Monoprice Mini Delta printer was more than up to the task. I found the data files posted on someone’s web site, not Thingiverse.

I've had some luck 3D printing the publicly available Mamiya 16 cassette models. The tolerances are tight enough that fine tuning of the model and/or physical modifications after printing may be required. The gray PLA I used is not opaque at all, but still workable with some careful handling of the film. Other pieces I've printed (lens boards, etc) can be made light tight by taping some cut backing paper flush with the surface.

The version I've printed has been mechanically 'optimized'. The supply side of the cassette is spool-less, ala minolta 16, and the take up spool only has a sprocket on one side. This makes the printing simpler and makes the inherent handed-ness of the Mamiya cassette caps a little more apparent.

Edit: This model IIRC

Kino said:

Have a look at the summary of this Thingverse opacity tool project. If you can ask the film cassette maker what filament they use, maybe you can cross reference it with this list. The maker is mainly concerned with printing camera bodies, but it should also be good indicator of cassette opacity, which is even thinner than a camera body.

PLA Opacity Tool by schlem

Finding truly opaque PLA for photographic / camera applications has proven difficult. Many black PLA formulations are translucent at best, even when printed at 100% infill.The sample photographs were fogged by translucent PLA, and light shining through the shutter (typically the thinnest part of...

www.thingiverse.com

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Great info, thank you. Will check this and get a better idea.

I'm pleased to report that there are no problems with the 3D printed cassette I got off Ebay as regards opacity.

I loaded an 18inch (actually 17.75 inch) length of time expired Ilford Pan F cine film (develop before May 1968 - 55 years ago!) and took the photo below before loading into the camera. I had previously added some velvet strips along the film entry slits to act as a light seal - as purchased there is no light trap here. We had some sunny weather on Saturday morning (I used the built in light meter set at ASA 10x the lowest it will go) and I took 20 exposures around the garden. Cassette was removed and left out on the bookshelf in the living room for a couple of hours before being put loaded into the developing tank. Film was developed yesterday (Sunday). There is no sign of fogging that I can see and my velvet seals are working satisfactorily.

There is however an issue with my camera at least in that the film is not being sufficiently advanced between shots so the images at the start of the roll overlap. This appears to be because the 3D printed take-up spool has a diameter of 12.35mm compared to 13.85mm for the one in the original cassette that was with the camera. In my camera each advance turns the spool 1/3rd. For a diameter of 13.85mm (original cassette) this results in the film being advanced 1/3 x pi x d = 14.5mm compared to 12.93mm for the 3D spool. The image width is 14mm hence the overlap. Of course, as more film is wound round the spool the diameter increases and the spacing improves as seen in the pictures at the bottom. Using an 18inch length of film wrapped around the original spool it looks like there should be sufficient clearance in the 3D printed chamber for a spool with a diameter equal to the original (the spools are not interchangeable due to a difference in design) so I plan on sticking a short length of card to the 3D spool to increase its diameter and then attach the film to the card. But before I do that, however, I think I need to take the pressure plate out of the camera to polish it as I think it is scratching the film as the film passes (I'm getting scratches with both the original and new cassettes so I don't think the cassettes are the cause).

The following are pictures of the entire strip taken with the film resting on an iPad screen which is responsible for the background pattern that is visible, but they show that the opacity is fine and that my velvet seals work. Bear in mind that the film is 55 years past is develop by date!

Exposures 1 to 5

Exposures 5 to 12

Exposures 10 to 16

Exposures 14 to 19

Exposures 19 and 20

Great news, Flighter! Not only in the opacity of the cassette, but also with the film being used, as I have 3 rolls of the same vintage16mm Ilford film. Hopefully my film will work as well as yours did...

Nice work!

Thanks Kino.

I think it should do, I got the film thrown in to an Ebay purchase of other stuff, and suspect that its storage conditions have not been optimal (to say the least). I was amazed to see how well it has performed.

Yep, in my copious free time I need to get at least one of my Mamiya 16 cameras operating...

The issue with the overlapping images may be down to my use of thinner cine film stock bit I think will be easy enough to get around by the use of card as detailed in my earlier post.

Flighter said:

The issue with the overlapping images

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This could be considered a feature, not a defect, if you don't mind taking a 12-shot panorama at the start of every cassette. Sort of an ad-hoc 'MamiyaWide'

Easily addressed by adding some leader / diameter to the take-up as you mentioned. The opposite issue effects reloaded 126 cartridges in my Instamatic 500 - spacing is decent at the start and has widened greatly by the end of the film, skipping entire potential frames. Real first world problems.

I usually opt for a Minolta 16 model out of convenience but the slower shutter speeds on the Mamiya models do come in handy if you use really, really slow films. Focusing from 1ft to infinity without auxiliary lenses is another great ability.

Bronson Dugnutt said:

This could be considered a feature, not a defect, if you don't mind taking a 12-shot panorama at the start of every cassette. Sort of an ad-hoc 'MamiyaWide'

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Ha ha,I hadn't thought of that, must try it! Lomography, here I come!

Bronson Dugnutt said:

Focusing from 1ft to infinity without auxiliary lenses is another great ability.

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This was why I got the Mamiya(s). Combination of slow shutter and focusing lens. Now if they only had the larger frame of the later Minolta and Kiev models...

Bronson Dugnutt said:

Easily addressed by adding some leader / diameter to the take-up as you mentioned. The opposite issue effects reloaded 126 cartridges in my Instamatic 500 - spacing is decent at the start and has widened greatly by the end of the film, skipping entire potential frames. Real first world problems.

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Yes, much easier to add some diameter to the take up spool than to deal with the holes for 126 spacing.

Flighter said:

much easier to add some diameter to the take up spool

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I used to wrap a couple turns of 5/8 wide masking tape on the takeup spool for Kiev 16 when using thin film stock. That camera compensates for spool build-up with a cam, but thinner film builds up slower. Starting with a larger spool gives wider spacing at roll start, but prevents overlaps at roll end. Looks like the Mamiya doesn't compensate for spool build-up, so as long as you don't overlap at the start, you should be okay regardless of the film thickness.

Donald Qualls said:

I used to wrap a couple turns of 5/8 wide masking tape on the takeup spool for Kiev 16 when using thin film stock. That camera compensates for spool build-up with a cam, but thinner film builds up slower. Starting with a larger spool gives wider spacing at roll start, but prevents overlaps at roll end. Looks like the Mamiya doesn't compensate for spool build-up, so as long as you don't overlap at the start, you should be okay regardless of the film thickness.

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That's what I'm hoping. It's been a wet day here so I spent the afternoon partially dismantling the lens box of the Mamiya in order to get at the pressure plate to polish it. That's been done so I'm all ready to reload the cassette for another test run using a spool built up with card to see how the spacing changes, hopefully with less scratches.

Donald Qualls said:

This was why I got the Mamiya(s). Combination of slow shutter and focusing lens. Now if they only had the larger frame of the later Minolta and Kiev models...

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Yeah, if you shoot enough 8x10 & 10x14mm then 12x17mm/110 starts to feel like medium format... and you can gain a new appreciation of 35mm.

The only Mamiya I've got is the non-metered 'De Luxe', so a relatively late model. Functionally the same as earlier versions but with a revamped, bulkier body for the new decade (1960). It is a bit large compared to other subminis but I think that contributes to it's affordability.

Flighter said:

hopefully with less scratches.

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It's probably not the case here, but the first time I reloaded an (original) Mamiya 16 cassette I had the caps reversed on the feed / take-up sides. Despite either cap fitting on either chamber they are designed for specific placement. So, if the advance seems difficult and it looks like freddy kreuger got into your development tank try taking a close look at the caps.

Do you guys think these are going to fit?

Do I need one or two of those?

That's a different design to the ones I got off Ebay but I think the Printables file you mention seems to be the same as used by Bronson Dugnutt (see post 10 above) in which case I would expect them to work. Note his comments about the (lack of) opacity for grey PLA. Kino's post (post 8 above) gives a link to a PLA opacity checker.

That Printables design just uses one spool per cassette, with the film just rolled up in the supply side chamber and feeding through to the spool on the take-up side. The cassettes I got off Ebay were of a slightly different design and used a spool in each chamber.