GA645 First Impressions

[sooner]

Hi All,

Just thought I'd share my first impressions of the GA645 that arrived from Adorama today. First, it's quite large, meaning tall and long, but not that thick because the lens doesn't come out that far. You would need a pretty big winter coat to pocket this thing. Loading film was a breeze. Here's what's freaking me out after taking exactly one picture of my first test roll: where's the shutter noise? I'm tellin' you, it's totally silent. I'm waiting for a hint of a click but no, the frame advance just starts whirring saying it's time to move on. The motor advance seems loud to me but probably not from two feet away. This thing feels like a brick, and I love it so far. If you all have any tricks or tips, pass them on. I'm taking it to Europe for two weeks and promise to post some pics upon my return. --John

 

[sf]

We have a member in the NW here that owns one of the Fuji series, and I'd have to say that lens is impressive.

 

[fidget]

Glad you like yours!
Mine makes a noise when the shuttter is released, I suspect that the noise comes from the inbuilt speaker, I had read here that some others thought that this may be the case. I would be interested to know if yours makes any noise through the speaker (should bleep when near last frame), or if anyone knows of a way to select on/off the noise.

Dave....

 

[sooner]

Dave, I didn't hear any noise partly because I had turned off the beeper, which wasn't that loud to begin with, before loading film. To turn off the beep, you press and hold the timer button while turning the fly wheel from off to iso, and as soon as it comes on you should see "off" on the lcd. And that's it. Before loading film, I actually had to look at the shutter through the lens to make sure it was tripping. By the way, my camera arrived to me with 2800 shots under its belt--is that very high by these standards?

 

[fidget]

Thanks for that, I think it would be better without the beep on shutter release. 2800 shots doesn't sound too high in terms of use. I remember that fuji suggest a service after a number (can't remember, it's in a post here), but others have gone way past that number. I rate mine very highly, but must always take care to just keep an eye on what the autofocus says it's doing. Seems that it can be easily tricked. Small or narrow objects (tree branch etc) are not always "seen" by the AF, on mine at least. Good shooting.

 

[sooner]

As an update, I got my first roll of 120 slide film back. All turned out great except for one, a shot where the bench in the shadows was what the camera exposed for making the Washington monument in the sun get blown out and weirdly almost invisible. Otherwise, the metering was dead on. I even have a handheld night shot of a gas station at 1/8th of a second, and it looks very sharp; you can read the Exxon clearly. So I'm very pleased with this thing.

 

[Dougg]

This is truly an impressive carry camera with great optics. I like and use the option to print date and exposure info near each frame. The autofocus isn't as picky as, say, the Contax G, but I have my share of misfocussed photos. This is probably the biggest accommodation challenge for me. I do prefer Fuji film, but not because the camera can read the bar code on the roll and automatically set the ISO... Unfortunately for me I always want the ISO set 2/3 of a stop lower. Bit of a pain to have to reset it manually every roll. Maybe I could have some lower ISO stickers printed... hmmmm.

For some samples take a look at my Gallery here; most are either the GA645Wi or Bronica RF as noted in the tech data for each shot.

Hope and expect you'll enjoy yours!