This Old Camera/Analog Therapy: Fujifilm GA645 (Rolls 3 and 4). The Bad and the Good.

Roll 3: Foma Fomapan 400

In the interest of full disclosure, things do not always go well with the analog therapy pursuit. Here a combination of a less than ideal film for me, unexpected ground conditions, and human error combined to provide a different type of experience. An opportunity to build my coping skills for when things do not go to plan.

I will not be purchasing Foma Fomapan 400 again. A fine film, I am sure. But not my cup of tea. It:

• Is a bit grainier than I like.

• Does not seem to play well with Cinestill df96.

Add in some self owns yesterday that have little to do with the film itself that have attached themselves to my opinion and we are done here. Pursuing some riverside pics, I managed to muddy my Chucks to near ruination. On the positive side I did not yard sale when I first hit the unexpected thick mud under a thin layer of grass. Later in my haste to develop a roll of B&W and color film back to back, I managed to forget to put the central dowel in place in the light proof tank. Which removed the light proof part. Only realized my error when I unexpectedly encountered the dowel while loading the next tank with color film in the light proof bag. Great. After development I confirmed that this blanked 8 exposures. The 7 remaining exposures? Not the pics I took while muddying my Chucks. The very photos I was looking most forward to. So I potentially ruined my Chucks for naught. Yay. But I chose to look at things a different way.

• The pics that did come out were grainier than I liked. I knew this was likely based on prior experience. So I would have likely been disappointed with the river pics if they had come out. In other words likely no great loss.
• Reminded me that I need to slow down.
• The site in question is near me. I can go back when conditions are less sloppy and retake these photos any time I want to.
• This is my last roll of Foma Fomapan 400 so this will no longer be an issue.

As I started saying more during the after times, “In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal.” In Foma’s defense, I get on just fine with Fomapan 100…

…and 200.

They are light on grain and get on just fine with Cinestill df96.

Lessons learned. Moving on.

Roll 4: Lomography 800

Will share more in an upcoming formal post on this camera. But the short version for now is that I have had quite a few Fujifilm cameras, film and digital. Ranging in size and format from a digital APS-C point and shoot to two versions of their film 120 film 6×9 Texas Leica (OG and III) and everything in between. But none stuck and I moved on. Fine cameras all. I just pivoted elsewhere. Have come close to purchasing their digital medium form offerings more than once. In fact, if they had offered phase detect AF on their more pedestrian offerings, I would like already have a GFX camera.

So why a Fujfilm GA645?

Simple:

• It is the only fully automatic, compact, medium format film point and shoot I am aware of.
• Stellar lens performance. Naturally. It is
• While it could not be described as inexpensive by any rational means, within the realm of the insane vintage medium format price escalations it is relatively “affordable”.
• I could go on but will stop here and elaborate further in a review post.

Has less to do with it specifically being a Fujifilm camera and more to do with the fact that only Fujifilm saw fit to make such a camera… So it has to do with being Fujifilm then?… Moving on. The original target was a GA645Zi I had been eyeing for quite some time at my local camera shop. But when I went in to rescue it I found out that it had already been rescued by an employee of the store. For a moment I was left reeling in the grasp of a GAS fit and started looking for something else to get from there. But I stopped myself. None of the other things I looked at were what I was looking for. As I stated above, a:

“fully automatic, compact, medium format film point and shoot”

Another Fujifilm medium format offering was as small, but lacked AF and AE. I have that game covered already. Already had a larger medium format camera with the option of full automation. Another medium format offering they had (Two of them in stock actually) was so eye wateringly expensive that it was far out of my reach. So after digging through their display case and straining to make a case for things that are not what I am looking for I drug myself out of the camera shop empty handed. Went home and searched for like options from other brands and found none. But there was good news. While I like the GA645Zi and would have picked it up if it were available there was another variant I wanted a bit more. The original GA645.

Why?

• Prime lens.
• f/4.

More on this later also, but having a prime medium format camera allowed me to even swap a prime for a zoom on another camera at said same camera shop. Anyhoo… I am getting into the weeds and ahead of myself. Back to the task at hand.

Test roll. Two in fact. This is two of two.

It arrived and looked good. It was lighter than I expected. When I picked up the box I thought that there is no way that there is a medium format camera in here. But there was and it was also smaller than I expected. All is good so far.

But does it work?

Yes, I am happy to report. Here are the resulting images with some thoughts after. 15 of 16 will be shared since. The 16th turned out fine camera wise, a hip shot to test blind composing, but the guy behind the camera did not choose an interesting composition for this test. One exposure has flares, but that was user error. Add in some another self own and this camera did well in spite of my best efforts to make a hash of it. More on al lof that below. The film of choice was Lomography 800 which was developed at home using Cinestill CS41.

Fourth roll self own.

• This has nothing to do with the film, but in how one uses the camera’s AF. Some film cameras I have can focus through glass, but that is not the case with the GA645. Not an issue, but good to know. I realized it right after taking a photo when I ignored the distance reading in the viewfinder but recalled that the in viewfinder frame lines closed down for a faraway subject so I knew right away that the photo would be out of focus. I rolled down the window and retook the pic without issue (Old gas station pic.).

Fourth roll thoughts.

• This is a fantastic camera.

That is about it.

Happy capturing.

-ELW