For a long time, making the jump up to medium format cameras from 35mm not only involved a good deal of expense, but also adapting to bigger, heavier and slower cameras – especially if you wanted an SLR.
While the 6x4.5cm format had been around for many decades (at least dating back to the 1920s), Mamiya introduced the first SLR system to exclusively use the image size in 1975 (the M645) and it sparked a revival.
