Would you buy the new Fuji Range Finder?

Would you buy the new Fuji Range Finder?

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No. I am not going to buy one. My house is full of MF gear. That I don't use, or use very little. Unfortuately. I have several folding MF'ers. They are all old and neither of them are presision instruments due to the folding mechanism.

Interested in MF? Understandable. Good color negs of ISO160 scanned looks as good as files from a 1Ds II. 501 M/C Hasselblads with removable film magazine and the excellent Carl Zeiss 80 mm 2,8 are being sold for less than 1,000 $ here in Norway. They are far more presise and durable than any folding camera and are in excellent condition and will last for a generation or two.
 
The Fuji looks great... too bad I don't think I could justify the costs of it...
But it's a good thing trying to make MF more portable and bringing more attention to analog films.
 
Olsen said:
501 M/C Hasselblads with removable film magazine and the excellent Carl Zeiss 80 mm 2,8 are being sold for less than 1,000 $ here in Norway. They are far more presise and durable than any folding camera and are in excellent condition and will last for a generation or two.
Click to expand...
Right, a Hasselblad may be more durable and more precise than a folder. But! - it is much more prone to keep its solid and durable state in its case, while I take my folder out on my motorcycle or hiking tours. That's true for me: my Kiev 60 hardly sees the light of the day, while I carry my Iskra with me wherever I travel.
I can imagine replacing the Iskra by one of those new Fujis.
 
The point of a folder is that you can throw it into the front pocket of your F-2 and use it when you need. It doesn't replace a regular RF camera for street shooting, but it is certainly complementary to it.

I'm very, very interested in buying this. I would definitely buy it if (a) it was light in weight (let's not confuse weight with durability) and (b) the lens focusing ring worked in the reverse direction to that shown in the prototype. Most rangefinder lenses work the way Leica lenses work so to have the aperture and focusing rings rotate in the same direction as Leica, Zeiss, CV et al would be a big plus for me.
 
I wouldn't buy one, for quite few reasons:
- I find MF folders a big hassle
- pricing
- there's still the Mamiya 7
- it's VERY questionable whether Fujfilm will actuall make this camera.
 
If the price were right I would buy one. Having MF that you can carry conveniently is important to me. That's one thing holding me back from getting a Mamiya 7 or GW670/690. Traveling with my Super Isolette was so easy because it fit in a jacket pocket.
 
I love the idea of a new medium format folder, but I seriously doubt that it could match the Mamiya 7. The Mamiya is 7 is fairly small too, and you don't have to hassle with setting the bellows properly, you have a number of different lens options, and it even has a standard film advance!
 
what 'specs' are people talking about, it's a film camera, what you see is pretty much what you get. i would buy one if it is around $1500 or so. I could sell my GS670iii to cover about half of that...
 
It's very tempting, it looks nice in black and the portability of a folding camera definitely appeals. I would put myself in the very interested category, but since I already own a Rolleiflex, it would be hard to justify another medium format camera. Also, cameras with long closest focussing distances really annoy me (I'm guessing this will be about 1 metre and a close up kit won't be available).

Bellows aren't always delicate - none of the Polaroid cameras with bellows seem to be prone to bellows problems even after a good few decades, so it is at least in principle possible to make good ones.
 
Ruben makes some interesting points. On the plaubel makina the wires were in the bellows and had a tendency after use, opening & closing, to break. It made for an expensive repair. With the Hasselblad, though it is large, there is no problem obtaining a shade and it stays on.
 
The strength of this Fuji is that it is a compact camera when folded. The weakness of this Fuji is that it is a folding camera, with bellows and the other limitations of a folding camera. (fixed lens, not close focusing, etc.)

The strength of a Hasselblad is that it is non-folding and has interchangeable lenses. The weakness of a Hasselblad is that it is large and non-folding.

Get the idea? Every camera type has strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the application or intent, a strength could be a weakness.
 
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