a trip to the Mamiya Service center in Tokyo
In August I attempted to find the Mamiya service center one afternoon armed only with a vague recollection of the map they have on website, which I had only seen once. That one time was long enough to remember that it was in a building between the koban at the southern tip of Ueno park and Shinobazu Pond.
In the end I was unable to find the place, which really didn’t matter because I went on a Saturday, and they are closed on the weekends.
Having both a rare weekday off and a desire to have my Mamiya 7 looked over, I decided to help you all out and post the way to the Mamiya Service Center from Ueno station.
1. Leave out Ueno Station’s Central Gate.
2. Head to the right and go under the Yamanote line.
3. Cross the street here and follow the sidewalk to the left. Keep going until you hit the Koban.
4. Here you swing right towards ADULT MOVIES and-
5. Cross the street.
6. At this point you will be at the west exit of the Keisei Ueno station, and the Mamiya center is on the 4th floor on the last building on the west side of the street.
7. But to get there you must first pass SOFT DRINK CORNER which due to the odors involved, also seems to double as URINAL CORNER.
8. Once you get to the Meiji Yasuda Building, take the elevator to the 4th floor.
9. You will know you are near as the number of Landscape Nature Photographs increases.
10. While the man at the front desk is off having your camera checked, you can snap a picture of the display case and selection of current photo magazines. Not pictured: All the Nature Photographs on the walls behind me.
11. The display case had one of their beautiful baby blue Limited Edition cameras just sitting there looking great. The thing about this camera is that is is far more blue in person. The color rendition capabilities of a 2MP abused digital camera leave much to be desired. “Auto Color” in photoshop added to making it look white.
So there you have it. My Mamiya 7 came back to me from it’s check up with the man telling me the light meter is reading one stop over, and that the rangefinder is slightly out of alignment. And that it would cost about a hundred bucks and 2 weeks to fix. When you only shoot black and white film, usually at f16, those issues are moot. I thanked him and headed out the door, camera in hand.
