Mamiya ZR Late Review

The Camera That Sort-of Wasn't
At Photokina in late September 2004 Mamiya announced the 22 Megapixel ZD camera and medium format back. More than 18 months later in the spring of 2006, the ZD camera finally became available. But, and it's a bigbut,not in North America.
The ZD back, which appeared to be stillborn has juststarted to appear (March '07) in some international markets
Mamiya cameras are distributed in the US byThe MAC Group. MAC stands for Mamiya America Corp., but it is an independent distributor, not part of Mamiya Japan. In any event, MAC decided not to bring the ZD into the US for reasons which were never made public. One can speculate of course, and there has been no lack of rumours within the industry. One story has it that MAC's management were not happy with the camera for some reason, while other conjectured that the fact that MAC is also the US distributor forLeafmedium format backs might have something to do with it.
Curiously though, the MAC web sites still show...