Fuji GA645 Zi newbie questions and comments

[GrahamM]

I just received my 645 Zi today from KEH. Luckily I also ordered a Users Manual. I'm running a 120 roll of Fujicolor Portrait 160 right now just to get the feel of it. For our upcoming trip to Hawaii this will certainly fill the bill of being lightweight, portable and not taking up a lot of room. In fact it is noticeably smaller than my Nikon D3. Here are some initial observations:

• Going to have to get used to portrait mode being default. I have a feeling I'm going to be flipping it on its side a lot for landscape shots.
• It is much lighter than my D3 which will make it very comfortable to carry around.
• Like any new camera it will take awhile to learn its ins and outs.

Here are a couple of newbie questions:

• The date format is yymmdd. I would prefer to change it mmddyy. I tried following the manual's instruction to change the format but it kept returning to the default. Can someone help me here?
• I tried changing the distance scale from meters to feet, but the viewfinder still has an "m" instead of "ft" in the upper right hand corner. Once again I tried following the manual but must have gone wrong somewhere. If I can't make the change, no big deal. I will just multiply the meters by 3.
• If I want to auto-focus on a subject that is off center, do I just focus, keep the shutter half depressed, and then recompose?
• The exposures counter reads 23 00. I gather that the 00 remains constant. If I am reading the manual correctly the "23" means that it has had 2,300 actuations. Does that sound right?
• If I decide to use a hot shoe flash what is recommended? I have a Nikon SB-800 speedlight which I just tried but it didn't fire

I'm sure I will have a few more over the next couple of days.

Thanks

Graham 🙂

 

[jmilkins]

Graham they are great cameras for travel and a range of other uses. I haven't done much of the button pressing to get the changes you need, though I believe focus lock is a feature of the camera, allowing you to recompose.

One thing that i found tricky at first with MF vis a vis 35mm was the relatively shallower depth of field with the larger format. Shooting wide open on the zi is not that wide open, and sometimes stopping down 1 extra stop would have helped where I wanted a greater DoF. Have fun with it and good light.

 

[RichyD]

I've had one of these for 2 months and it is a great carry around and useful with the step zoom. Just a bit too auto for me.

I haven't played with the date format.

The distance scale setting affects the lcd display only when using manual focus. The viewfinder display remains in meters. I think it says this in the manual.

Yes, to focus off centre question.

Yes to the exposure counter.

I did some research and saw some references to the Nikon SB-15 flash as being suitable because it would fit the portrait format.

Hope that helps and it works out for you. I've got great results from the camera, they are very good value.

 

[GrahamM]

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

 

[shambla]

I got a GA645Zi a couple of months back and have been very impressed with the results - optically it's perhaps not quite up there with my Mamiya 645 Pro's lenses, but it's more than good enough and a big step up in image quality over 35mm.

One thing I would add is to be careful with where you rest your left hand when turning the camera to shoot landscape - if you turn the camera clockwise (right hand and shutter towards the ground) make sure you don't try to support the lens barrel with your left hand. I am used to this position from using 35mm rangefinders given the location of the focus/aperture rings, but if you are not careful this sometimes results in a finger in the corner of your shot at 55mm with the GA645Zi.