Object of Desire: Fujifilm GF670 Professional 6x7 Camera

© Fujifilm

Fujifilm has manufactured an impressive line of medium format rangefinder cameras over the years, including the innovative Auto-Focus Point and Shoot GA645 and GA645Zi, but the GF670 has to be one of the most drool worthy cameras of this series.

This Retro-styled medium format folder sports and EBC Fujinon 80mm f1:3.5 lens, switchable frame formats of 6x7 and 6x6, aperture priority automatic and manual exposure control, and rangefinder focusing. The in lens leaf shutter has speeds from 1/500th to 4 sec. with a B setting for longer exposures and a lens aperture range of f1:3.5 to 1:22.

Other Features include AE Lock, +/- 2 stop exposure compensation, ISO range of 25 to 3200 and automatic parallax correction. More on the GA67 can be found on Fujifilm USA's website and Camerapedia.

Alternative Energy Revisited

Mamiya Press 23 100mm f2.8 FUJIFILM Neopan Acros 100 Arista 76 Developer 1:1 - Created from a mistake during the shoot from my post Alternative Energy no. 2, this image contains a little more Photoshop work than I normal post here, but I believe interesting enough to share. I broke out my Mamiya Press 23 for the first time in many years and had for gotten that the film advance for this 6x9 rangefinder was a 2 stroke affair. Though I remembered after the 4th exposure, the 1st 4 frames were overlapped. What surprised me was the consistency and position of the overlaps. I used Photoshop to balance the exposure between the different sections of the overlaps, but decided not to blend the edges, as I believe the actually contribute to the feel of the image. I love the final result.

Below is the orginal "un-shopped" scan for comparison.

Scanned with an Epson V500 Using Epson's OEM scanner software.

The Ansco Shur Shot

A simple, straight forward 6x9 Box Camera... The Ansco Shur Shot is the definition of "Point and Shot." One shutter Speed, no flash no accessories, the only real frill here is the dual waist level view finders. One for vertical and one for horizontal viewing. Not the feature rich Ansco Shur Shot B2, by any means.

The Agfa Ansco B-2 Shur-Shot Regular

The Agfa Ansco Shur-Shot Regular

Front on view showing the Art Deco design accents and dual viewfinders for Horizontal and Vertical shooting.

Camera controls. Time for selecting either standard shuttle speed or Bulb. Film advance. Diaphragm to select the 2 available f-stops or the built in yellow filter for black and White and the shuttle release. Also of note the black frame lines in the view finder to denote the 6x4.5 framing. 

The Shur-Shot with the guts removed for film loading. In this shot the camera is configured for the 6x9 frame format.

This shot shows the camera reconfigured for 6x4.5 format.

The Shur-Shot's instructions and printed on the inside from. I love the retro graphics.

A Box Camera Classic in the same category as the Kodak Brownies. The Shur-Shot uses 120 film, making it easy to use even today. Sporting 2 shutter speeds, something close to a 60th of a second and Bulb this is not a action stopper by any means. The standard 6x9 frame format does make it a great landscape camera, as long as you do not mind blurry corners. The Shur-Shot has 2 fairly unique features for a simple box camera. One, a built in yellow filter that can be selected by the sliding diaphragm tab on the side of the camera. And two, dual frame formats, 6x9 and 6x4.5, selected by moving metal frame blades in and out of position. Images from this camera to follow. More on the Shur-Shot at Camera-Wiki.

Mamiya Press Tilt/Shift Fun

Example no. 1 Back extended (relatively) straight for
to achieve close focus.

Example no. 2 Back tilted to achieve Selective focus.

I have owned a Mamiya Press for a long time, but have always used it as just a 6x9 medium format rangefinder. It is a great field camera in that role, though it is a much more cable camera. It's movable back allows for Tilt/Shift function similar to a large format view camera. The images above demonstrate the backs capabilities and the posts to follow will show the results. Focus is achieved on a ground glass in the focusing back. The back is then removed and replaced with a roll film back.