davegardner0
Newbie
Hello!
I'm having an intermittent issue with the film transport on my Fuji GW690 (1st generation) rangefinder and I'm hoping to get some opinions on it.
The typical film loading operation with this camera is to put the film in and advance it to the arrow, then close the back and do maybe 5-6 thumb winds to get to the first frame. Typically when you get to the first frame the winder locks and you have to take the first photo before advancing the film any more.
Recently when shooting a sunrise on a colder morning I put a roll of film in, and the winder never stopped, causing me to wind through the whole roll! I put another roll in and the same thing happened, at which point I gave up. After letting the camera warm up the issue seems to have gone away (tested by putting through a roll of leftover backing paper only, which advanced normally).
This happened while on a trip, and when I returned home I found that one of the rolls from a few days before also kind of had this problem, it looks like the "frame 1" locked in 1 or 2 strokes too late and so frame 8 was only half-on the film.
So now the camera seems to work but I'm paranoid that it'll happen again at the worst moment. So, what can I do here? I do have some experience fixing cameras (like my Canon QL17) so if there's something I can lubricate or adjust I'd be up for that. Or, does Fuji or someone else still service these cameras? The lens has also been kind of loose on the body for a while, so it would be good to get that fixed as well if possible.
And my last thought/question: up until now I'd figured the GW690 was really the only camera I'll need for a long time going forward as I love using it, but this incident has now made me start thinking about how it could break down in the future and be unable to be repaired. So maybe it's worth finding a much newer film camera to shoot with? (And that's got me thinking about the Fuji GF670, only 10 years old maximum instead of the GW690's 30-40). But what are the long-term reliability/repairability prospects of the GW690? Would the GF670 be a good replacement with better long-term reliability since it's so much newer?
Thanks for the help!
I'm having an intermittent issue with the film transport on my Fuji GW690 (1st generation) rangefinder and I'm hoping to get some opinions on it.
The typical film loading operation with this camera is to put the film in and advance it to the arrow, then close the back and do maybe 5-6 thumb winds to get to the first frame. Typically when you get to the first frame the winder locks and you have to take the first photo before advancing the film any more.
Recently when shooting a sunrise on a colder morning I put a roll of film in, and the winder never stopped, causing me to wind through the whole roll! I put another roll in and the same thing happened, at which point I gave up. After letting the camera warm up the issue seems to have gone away (tested by putting through a roll of leftover backing paper only, which advanced normally).
This happened while on a trip, and when I returned home I found that one of the rolls from a few days before also kind of had this problem, it looks like the "frame 1" locked in 1 or 2 strokes too late and so frame 8 was only half-on the film.
So now the camera seems to work but I'm paranoid that it'll happen again at the worst moment. So, what can I do here? I do have some experience fixing cameras (like my Canon QL17) so if there's something I can lubricate or adjust I'd be up for that. Or, does Fuji or someone else still service these cameras? The lens has also been kind of loose on the body for a while, so it would be good to get that fixed as well if possible.
And my last thought/question: up until now I'd figured the GW690 was really the only camera I'll need for a long time going forward as I love using it, but this incident has now made me start thinking about how it could break down in the future and be unable to be repaired. So maybe it's worth finding a much newer film camera to shoot with? (And that's got me thinking about the Fuji GF670, only 10 years old maximum instead of the GW690's 30-40). But what are the long-term reliability/repairability prospects of the GW690? Would the GF670 be a good replacement with better long-term reliability since it's so much newer?
Thanks for the help!
