This entry starts out on a sad note. My GW690II, although great cosmetically, is broken. And the parts to fix it are no longer available, at least not in North America. Fujifilm Canada redirected me to Fujifilm USA and they revealed that NO parts are available for it, or for any of its variations, or for any Fuji professional film camera besides limited components for the GF670 and GX680. It’s something to keep in mind when thinking of purchasing one of these cameras.
In my case the camera’s aperture is stuck at F32, so I don’t use it anymore. I hope to get another one, either entirely functional, or at least with the right working parts to steal.
However, besides the lack of support for the camera, there are good reasons to pick one up. But first, a brief overview.
Models
As the II in the name suggests, this is the second iteration of the GW690 camera. There is also a III. In addition, Fuji released a GW670II, GW670III and GW680III, which were identical to their version counterparts except for the size of negative they produced, which is 6×7, 6×7, and 6×8 respectively, as the camera names suggest. The GW690s has a 6×9 negative. On top of all that there was a GSW690II, GSW690III, and GSW690III which all had a wider 65mm F5.6 lens compared to the 90mm F3.5 lens on the GWs.
Besides the frame size and the dual lens variations, the features of all of the models are essentially the same.
Features
The GW690II is a simple camera with a short feature list. It has a fixed 90mm lens that projects onto a 6x9cm frame, producing a field of view roughly equivalent to a 43mm in 35mm terms. It can use 120 or 220 film for 8 or 16 shots respectively. The lens has apertures from 3.5 to 32 and a leaf shutter with speeds from 1 to 1/500 along with a T mode for longer exposures. Focusing is manual via a rangefinder and there is no light meter.
There is a cable release thread in the top shutter button and an additional shutter button on the front of the camera. There is also a shutter lock, hot-shoe, flash-sync port and tripod thread.
The camera doesn’t use batteries.
Negatives
I love this camera. It is/was one of my favourites. But there are some downsides.
Although the camera has a leaf shutter, taking a shot produces a substantial and ugly twang. This doesn’t seem to introduce any noticeable vibration but it does call attention to itself. Not that the GW690 is at all stealthy. It is surprisingly large. Surprising because it has the proportions of a typical 35mm rangefinder and so can appear deceptively small in photographs. In person it is comically large, living up to its nickname “Texas Leica”. So it is a substantial camera to lug around.
Another downside is it’s lack of a light meter. This isn’t a huge deal, and I will contradict myself in the next section by praising the camera’s simplicity and battery-less operation, but it would be a convenience for those of us that don’t have a meter in our head. I usually mount a small sekonic L-208 on top when shooting casually or carry a sekonic L-758DR for delicate work.
The minimum focus distance is one meter, which doesn’t allow for head shots that fill the frame. The GW is still decent for portraits but one will be restricted to chest up shots and wider.
For me, the biggest fault of the GW690 is the absence of a bulb mode. The T mode allows for arbitrarily long exposures but is terminated by advancing the frame. Even on a sturdy tripod it is difficult to avoid camera shake when pulling the frame advance lever. I’ve heard of people resorting to using a hat as the shutter, throwing it over the lens at the end of an exposure before pulling the lever. I think more than anything, the inclusion of a bulb mode would extend the appeal of the camera to a wider range of users, particularly landscape photographers.
Positives
Now for the good stuff.
I love this camera’s simplicity. There is no battery to worry about and all settings are made with mechanical controls. The simplicity also contributes to a nice clean design, which is unfortunately deviated from in the III.
By far the main reason to love this camera is the image quality. The lens performance is stellar and the negatives are about as large as you will get with roll film outside of specialty panoramic cameras. Not only is the lens sharp but it also has great colour, flare resistance and contrast and has very little light falloff, particularly considering the large area it has to project over. For some, the main downside of the lens is that the bokeh is a bit harsh, but even that is not always a negative. Some might also find the lens too contrasty, but I really like the look and find it’s relatively easy to find low contrast options amongst older, less expensive cameras.
Conclusion
For image quality, this camera is my favourite. Of course different circumstances call for different image quality characteristics, but, when an image is possible to capture within the camera’s limitations, it is my first choice of any other that I own, film or digital. Or it would be, if it wasn’t broken.
exposure.contemplation 