Spotlight: Fujifilm GA645Zi

A few weeks ago I was helping a man, Rob, figure out how to use his new digital camera at his home. When I told Rob that I liked using film cameras, he became excited and pulled out a Fujifilm GA645Zi that he had up in his attic. He didn't know if it still worked, so he let me borrow it to test it with a roll of film since his knowledge on cameras is limited. The GA645Zi is NOT a cheap camera (fetches around $1000 on eBay), so I was excited for the chance to try one out. 

Did the camera work? Well, sort of. 

The GA645Zi is fairly unique in that it is a medium format point and shoot camera with autofocus. First released in 1998, the GA645Zi takes advantage of the 645 image format on 120 film, resulting in a negative roughly 2.6 times bigger than with 35mm. The GA645Zi is proudly branded as "professional" on its top plate, but I highly doubt professional photographers of the era depended on this camera for jobs. No, this camera is most likely intended for the enthusiast photographer who takes their daily family snaps a little more seriously than the average person. 

The build quality of the GA645Zi feels great. It's sturdy, but also not too heavy. However, one part of the camera that's known to fail is the LCD screen on the rear of the camera. Parts of the screen just go dead over time, and refuse to display information. The camera I borrowed is no different (see photo below). Unfortunately, important info such as your current frame, ISO, and exposure compensation are displayed on the LCD, so having a non functioning screen can really hamper your experience. 

Your selected aperture is also displayed on the rear LCD while in aperture priority mode, but luckily it's also viewable in the finder window, which is excellent for a point and shoot. 

The finder displays the current aperture and shutter speed on the left, and the focused distance on the right (once you half-press the shutter button to focus). Framelines show parallax compensation, and the finder zooms in and out depending on the focal length you have selected. Due to the 645 format, the finder is vertical, so to make a landscape style shot, you must turn the camera on its side! 

Like most point and shoots of the 90's the GA645Zi has a zoom lens. It covers the focal lengths of 55-90mm, which is roughly the same field of view as a 35-55mm lens in 35mm photography. So, it goes from a slightly wide to a normal field of view. The lens has a variable aperture of f/4.5 (at 55mm) to f/6.1 (at 90mm). Not very impressive. This lens is one aspect of the camera that really holds it back, in my opinion. A faster prime lens would be far preferable to this slow zoom that has barely any range. 

To help make up for the slow zoom, the GA645Zi has a pop-up flash for darker situations, or when you want a bit of fill. It must be manually activated, even in P mode. In my tests, it exposed my subjects well. 

Though labeled as a point and shoot, the GA645Zi affords a good amount of control. Along with Program mode, there is also an aperture priority mode, and even a full manual mode. You can also focus manually, though the process is very clumsy. 

The autofocus on the GA645Zi is absolutely terrible. Just about every shot I took turned out soft, whether it was a close-up portrait or far-off landscape. This surprised me, as I recently achieved sharp results with the Olympus Stylus and Canon AF35M camera, two significantly older and cheaper autofocus point and shoots. What happened here? Was Fuji behind the times with their autofocus tech? I was extremely disappointed. 

One other major issue with the GA645Zi that I've read about and experienced first hand is its tendency to loosely roll film onto the take-up reel. Apparently this is known as "fat rolling." This fat rolling unfortunately happened to me, and the last 3-4 frames on my roll ended up with light streaks.

So, yeesh. The Fujifilm GA645Zi is not a camera I can recommend, especially given its steep price. That said, I'm happy I got to experience this camera, and I'm very grateful to Rob for letting me borrow it. Below are my results. The film was Kodak TMax 400. 

Spotlight: Olympus Stylus

The Olympus Stylus (known as the Mju in Japan) is a fully automatic, full-frame 35mm point-n-shoot from 1991. This thing is seriously small - it can fit into the front pocket of my slim-fit shorts, with my wallet already in there! The Stylus has gotten ridiculously expensive within the last few years, so I was pretty pumped to find one at an estate sale for the small sum of $20. While most estate sales and flea markets have caught on to the popularity and value of film cameras, you can still usually find 35mm point-and-shoots for pretty cheap, as many people still believe them to be useless. Every once and a while you can snag something valuable for peanuts.  

The main reason why the Stylus is so sought after is because of its lens: a sharp 35mm f/3.5 prime. There are versions of the Stylus that feature zoom lenses, but the fixed focal length models such as this one are much more popular with film enthusiasts (and fetch a lot more $). 

Operation of the Stylus is fully automatic. There is no exposure compensation feature -- you can't even manually change the ISO to trick the camera into over or under-exposure (the light meter relies on DX coded film). You do, however, get a good selection of flash modes. By default, the camera is set to auto, where the camera will decide for you whether the scene needs flash or not. Auto-S mode eliminates red-eye in color photos by emitting a mini rave's worth of flashes before the main flash. Fill-In mode is used to fill in harsh shadows when photographing outdoors in bright light, or if your subject is back-lit. I used this mode the most while photographing my baseball team outside in harsh afternoon light. You can also just turn off the flash entirely. 

I was impressed with how fast the Stylus starts up once you slide open the lens cover. It's pretty much instantly ready to take a photo! The flash is also immediately ready to go when used with a full battery. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows -- because the lens moves in to focus after you fully depress the shutter button, there is a noticeable delay between when you click the release and when the shutter actually fires -- about 1/3 of a second. This is obviously not a problem when photographing still subjects, but capturing any kind of movement can be frustrating. Because of this slight delay, a lot of my baseball action photos were taken just a liiiiiittle bit too late. Focus seems to be pretty accurate for a 90's camera, and all of my exposures (with and without flash) came out looking nice. 

Overall, I enjoyed using the Olympus Stylus. Its teeny tiny size is its most impressive asset to me. I would routinely slip the camera into my pocket and forget it was even in there! Below are some photos I made with my Stylus. The film is long-expired expired Arista II 400. 

Spotlight: Canon AF35M

 

Last weekend I lucked out at the flea market and picked up this Canon AF35M for a measly five bucks! Needless to say, I was elated. 

Released all the way back in 1979, the AF35M is Canon's very first autofocusing camera. It uses an infrared system that works pretty well, even in low light. While not all of my photos came out sharp, the majority were acceptable, and for 1979, I consider that a win. 

I love early autofocus point-n-shoot cameras like this, because they usually had fast prime lenses, not like the plethora of 90's point-n-shoots with boring slow zooms. The 38mm f/2.8 lens on the AF35M is a great focal length for a fixed prime-- not too wide and not too tele. It's pretty dang sharp, too, if the focus is on point. 

Loading the camera is a little awkward. Auto-load wasn't a thing yet for electronic cameras, so you still have to stuff the film leader into a take-up reel. Film also isn't automatically advanced to the first frame when you close the camera, so you gotta manually fire off three shots or so (until the frame counter reads 1). Also, the ISO must be set manually via a dial on the front of the lens -- no DX compatibility here! The camera can handle film speeds between 25 and 400. 

Once the camera is loaded and your ISO is set, the camera is very simple to use. It's a point-n-shoot, so exposure is completely automatic, with no manual override. I suppose you could change the ISO on the front of the camera to intentionally over or under expose, but the ISO dial does not turn easily, so it'd be a pain. Exposures, both with ambient light and flash, turned out basically perfect in my experience, so I wouldn't worry about the lack of control. Like, seriously, this 40+ year old point and shoot exposes more accurately that my DSLR. 

Exposures are made by pressing the massive shutter release button on top of the camera. The shutter can fire between 1/8 and 1/500 of a second. If you half-press the shutter, a red light will come on in the finder if the camera thinks the scene is too dark for handheld operation. There is also a distance scale in the finder, but it's almost useless. When you fire the shutter, a little indicator shows you the distance the lens focused at. While this is cool, I wish it happened BEFORE the picture was taken, and not after.  So, you'll have a good idea if the camera missed focus, but only AFTER you wasted a frame of film. The Nikon L35AF later fixed this issue by showing you the focus indicator when the shutter button was pressed halfway, before exposure. The AF35M's scale is better than nothing at all, but still disappointing.  

The viewfinder with focus point, distance scale, and frame lines

The camera will try to focus on whatever the center icon in the viewfinder is pointed at. If you want to shoot an off-center subject, it's a little tricky. You have to flip down the self-timer switch, press the shutter button to pre-focus, recompose, then finally press the shutter button again. This process is cumbersome, and pretty much requires you to use a second hand. There is also no way to cancel the exposure or change the focus once the shutter is pressed for the first time. Oof. 

Once an exposure is made, the camera automatically winds the film to the next frame with a charming "UURRRR!" noise. This camera is by no means quiet! At least the camera does not wind until you take your finger off the shutter button, so you can control when the camera screams. At the end of the roll, you must rewind the film by pressing the sprocket release on the bottom of the camera while simultaneously holding down the rewind switch on the top of the camera. It's a true test of dexterity! During rewinding, you are treated to a different, but equally pleasing "WUHoooWUHoooWUH" sound. The frame counter counts backward during the rewind phase, which is fun to watch. 

The only other feature to talk about is the flash, which does its job well. It's activated with a little switch on the front of the camera, which causes it to pop up and into action! It takes about four seconds to charge up with a pair of fresh AA batteries. Like I said before, the flash exposures turned out perfect. No blown out faces, even at close distances. 

While Canon's AF35M certainly has a lot of eccentricities, I found most of its issues excusable given it's one of the first autofocus cameras... ever. These point-n-shoots were primarily designed for capturing family moments, so that's what I did with mine. I mostly shot pictures while hanging out with friends and family, as well as the process of moving my brother-in-law into his new apartment. 

Print: Fortune Teller

A 7x5 print I made of a fortune teller automaton in Detroit, Michigan. I finally got my enlarger working properly thanks to a piece of heat absorbing glass, so I plan on making a lot more darkroom prints going forward!

Spotlight: Nikon F4s

 

I like the Nikon F4 quite a bit. I made a spotlight for it almost exactly five years ago, which can be viewed here. A couple days ago, at an estate sale, I found a Nikon F4s in great condition. Besides a thin little cosmetic crack on the viewfinder, it seems near-mint! 

So, what's the difference between an F4 and an F4s? Turns out, it's the battery pack. When the smaller MB-20 pack is installed on the camera body, it's known as an F4. When the beefier MB-21 pack is attached, the camera becomes an F4s. Besides these swappable battery packs, the cameras themselves are the exact same. 

While the F4s setup is larger than the standard F4, and takes an additional two batteries (6 vs. 4), you do get some cool added features. With all that extra battery power, the F4s can shoot at an impressive (for 1988) 5.7 frames per second, quite a bit faster than the 4 fps of the standard F4. Though the F4s is huge for a 35mm camera, the MB-21 does afford it a vertical grip, which makes framing portrait-oriented photographs much more pleasant. I actually prefer the handling of the F4s to the F4, as long as I don't have to carry it around with me very far! 

I took my F4s out with me to photograph what it was designed to photograph: sports. My vintage base ball team, the Chicago Salmon, had a game in Valparaiso this past weekend, and I captured some of it on film. Overall I was impressed with the results. As I was in daylight for the entire shoot, the autofocus worked very well. Most of my photographs came out acceptably sharp, and very well exposed. While I don't think the F4s could keep up with faster, more unpredictable sports like soccer or basketball, for baseball it definitely sufficed. 

There is one thing about the F4 that bugs me though, which is that it will not shoot at its fastest frame rate while in "single" autofocus mode. It will only shoot at the full 5.7 fps when in "continuous" or "manual" focus modes. At first I thought my new F4s was not working properly, but my other F4 operates the same way. I guess in "single" mode, the camera needs to make sure it is properly focused between each exposure, so it refuses to shoot at its fastest speed. Kind of annoying, but you can work around this by using the AF-L (autofocus lock) button while in continuous mode. It's just an extra button you have to press. 

Speaking of buttons, that's also one of the reasons why I love the F4s. It's the most advanced autofocus 35mm camera to not have an LCD screen. There is a physical switch or dial for every single function, which some people may hate, but I find engaging. While I like my F5, which is leaps and bounds above the F4s in terms of technology, I can't help but be drawn to the mini switchboard that is the top of the Nikon F4s. I love being able to see all the settings on my camera at a glance without having to dive into any menus, or even turn the camera on. No, the F4s is nowhere near as capable as the F5, but it has way more charm, and is more rewarding to operate. 

I originally intended to sell this F4s and make a quick buck, but I think I'll hold onto it for a while. Maybe I'll even shoot some more games with it. Enjoy the rest of the photographs I made with my F4s. I used a Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 D lens, and Ilford Delta 400 film.