Would you buy the new Fuji Range Finder?

Would you buy the new Fuji Range Finder?

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I just went to Yellowstone, Sturgis and the Dells and shot with a Zeiss Ikon 645 folder. It was a lot of fun. Add the convenience of built in metering and I'm sold.

I'm off to Vegas in a month. If you hear someone at the craps table yelling "Daddy needs a new Bessa!!", it's probably me.

Eric
 
rogue_designer said:
No. I'm glad they're putting it out - but honestly, given that I can get a vintage Bessa or Zeiss for a fraction of the cost - I have very little to gain by spending more on the Fuji.

I suspect they'll sell entirely to collectors.
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If I collect one of these, it won't spend much time on a shelf. I use my Balda and Iskra now. This camera will be a better shooter than those without a doubt.
 
Steve is the owner of Cameraquest (A Cosina Voightlander dealer) and also the owner of Rangefinder Forum. He knows the president of Cosina personally.

As for price, photography attracts a lot of men with more money than sense, and it is very common for people to order very overpriced gear before the price is announced. The Leica M8 was ordered by many who wanted it at any price no matter how high. I worked at a camera store in Santa Fe when the M8 came out and we took deposits from A LOT of men for M8's before Leica ever said what it was going to actually sell for!
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Steve is the owner of Cameraquest (A Cosina Voightlander dealer) and also the owner of Rangefinder Forum. He knows the president of Cosina personally.

As for price, photography attracts a lot of men with more money than sense, and it is very common for people to order very overpriced gear before the price is announced. The Leica M8 was ordered by many who wanted it at any price no matter how high. I worked at a camera store in Santa Fe when the M8 came out and we took deposits from A LOT of men for M8's before Leica ever said what it was going to actually sell for!
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Cameraquest is taking reservations, no deposit is required.
You risk nothing by putting yourself on that list, you are only expressing interest.
If the camera is too big or too expensive or the lens sucks or it can't be focused accurately or you just plain change your mind...you're out every bit of the $0.00 you have invested.

Seems worth the risk to me.
 
chippy said:
so yeah i get that some people will put their money down no matter what..seems a little silly but there ya go......hehe instead of "show me the money" (movie quote) "show me the quality" and price, lens and full specs first!!!!
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Since I have a Fuji GW690 - I can definitely tell you won't be getting any of the old Braunschweig build-quality. Expect plastic cladding and other plastic accouterments similar to a Mamiya 7 II. It will be also be limited production run.

Conceptually, this will be the folder that I want to bring on a trip to accompany either a small DSLR or 35mm rangefinder. Unfortunately, it will be larger than my Bessa II. Yet to have the automat winding, built-in metering, AE with manual over-ride and most important of all a modern coupled RF/VF with parallax corrected frame lines is what it is all about.

By the way, the Fuji GW / GWS series were never inexpensive cameras.
 
dazedgonebye said:
I think they've confused AE with AF.
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I believe that Steve is correct. Who ever wrote the BJP article was probably out of his zone of expertise.

How many photographers do you know - who could claim to use a medium format folder on a regular basis?
 
Solinar said:
I believe that Steve is correct. Who ever wrote the BJP article was probably out of his zone of expertise.

How many photographers do you know - who could claim to use a medium format folder on a regular basis?
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You mean...other than the people on this board, right? ;)
 
i would love to use a medium format anything on a regular basis, that is more portable than the fuji GW690 or a TLR.
Hell, i even lugged the GW690ii to my last trip and i haven't regretted it a second!
 
John, we are in a zone of our own.

The only other folder user I've met on the streets of Austin, TX with one in hand was an older gentleman carrying a 4x5 set up for a Speed Graphic. Interestingly he was a caricature of a professor from the 1950's and he warned me about a high rise commercial bank down the street that did not allow photography on the sidewalk in front of its building.

Our sacred photography magazine journalists who cover all the latest and greatest photo gadgets for the most part aren't at all familiar with vintage 120 RF folders.
 
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I would buy one depending on price of course. But then the 2 enlargers I have only does 35mm. I will need one that does 120.
 
chippy said:
indeed if Ernst's overall measurments are correct then i thought the same; that practicbly a 6x9 format could fit, after all as it stands at the moment, it appears bigger in dimension than the 6x9 Bessa II.
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Edit:

Forget what I wrote first on the two rangefinders of Bessa III and Bessa R being the same.

I have checked it in a more objective way and there is a difference between the two big viewer windows at the right. The Bessa III has a 1.3 ratio there and the Bessa R a 1.5 ratio. The rest of the windows have the same size. The 1.3 is another indication it is 56x72 mm. If I'm able to load the picture here you will see the yellow rectangles mark the windows of the Bessa III and in green the ones of the Bessa R.

Another edit, 22-10-2008: The picture at the voigtlander.de site of an opened Bessa III showed that the max frame size is 56x68 mm.
That's what happens when you try to guess a frame size with an optimistic expectation of what it could be.

Ernst Dinkla
 

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