old mamiya 35mm slr

hey everybody, i got my hands on an old mamiya 35mm camera, i really don't know anything about photograpy, but i wanted to know what these cameras were like performance wise and any general tips. I would most likely be using it for sports shots as well. Any help would be great, thanks

The most critical part of the system is always going to be the quality of the lenses used... Unfortunately I don't think it has been all that good, as I remember from www.kenrockwell.com... To me I would always recommend that whatever system you use, make sure it has quality lenses. Also, since it is a manual focus camera you will have to learn how to prefocus and really learn the controls of the camera. It's quite a bit trickier then using an auto everything camera, but I think you learn a lot more in the process...

At some point you may grow out of it, but as long as it works correctly it should be just fine to start out with. Mamiya 35mm cameras haven't been made for many years so it's probably not the right one to try to build a system with, especially if you're interested in sports. On the other hand, you should be able to pick up a lens or two quite inexpensively. You may want to check out some of the Kodak books on the basics of photography.