Dave, Yes, the recent stuff is from the GF, though honestly, I think you'd be hard pressed to distinguish any difference between those pictures and ones made with my Yashica Mat. I'm of the opinion that just about any decent medium format camera is capable of being plenty good, or at least, capable of technically surpassing my own shoddy techniques. Anyway though, yeah, with my poor Yashica Mat starting to show signs of imminent death, I decided to splurge and buy myself a new (!) camera. So, one less Triumph Bonneville later, I received the GF. I've had my eye on it for a long time now. I realize that for the money I could have bought a load of great used gear, but I didn't want a load of used gear; I just wanted a simple, small, quality medium format camera, and I think the Fuji is definitely that.
Off the top of my head, the pros:
It's size. I know 'small' is a relative term here, but I think it's safe to say that most of those reading this would find the GF positively tiny. With it folded up, you could slip it into your pocket, if you had a pretty big pocket. It's fairly light too, so light that when I received the box, I almost thought they'd forgotten to put it in! That said, it somehow manages to feel quite solid and well put together.
The viewfinder! I have to put an exclamation point on that, because the GF has a truly glorious viewfinder. Giant, clear and bright, it's a joy to look through. I'm actually excited for dark winter to come on so I can fully utilize the awesomeness that is this viewfinder.
The simplicity. You couldn't get much simpler without going to an 35mm auto-focus point and shoot. In fact, it kind of reminds me of my Olympus Stylus Epic (remember those-the clam-shell ones?) in that it's so straightforward and well laid out, it practically disappears. I can't think of a higher compliment.
The shutter. People often talk about the quietness of the Mamiya 7's shutter. I've owned a Mamiya 7, and let me tell you, while I don't want to disparage that fine camera, the GF's shutter makes the Mamiya's sound like a Pentax 67's. It's really that smooth, that quiet.
What else? Well, the ability to switch between 6x6 and 6x7 is pretty cool, though I'm kind of into squares at the moment.
As far as negatives go, the first thing that comes to mind is the filter system, which is a little funky. Basically, there are two options: you can screw filters onto the lens and then screw a lens shade onto that, BUT, if you do, then you can't close the camera without removing them. Alternately, you can get smaller filters which screw into the special little Fuji lens shade, which is then clipped onto the front of the lens. Using the lens shade itself is straightforward, though again, you have to take it off and on to close the camera. Where things get weird is when you want to use a small filter with the lens hood. If you want to go this route, you must first unscrew this tiny metal ring in the lens shade, and then screw the filter onto that, then screw the filter/ring back into the shade, and then clip the lens shade on in front of the lens. Sound convoluted? Well, it is, and doing all that (good luck if you have big hands) without getting fingerprints on the filters is tough. Luckily for me, I don't use filters a whole lot so it's not too big of a deal.
Time will tell if this next thing is a negative, but I do wonder about how the mechanism for opening and closing the camera will hold up after thousands of repetitions. As I mentioned, the GF does seem very well made, but the possibility of this bit failing does weigh on my mind a little.
Oh, there's no self-timer, which I don't use very much, but it would have been nice. I have one of those external wind-up ones that I tested on the GF and it works fine.
I find the ergonomics to be wonderful, but I could also see some people being put off by them. They do take a little getting used to. The right hand holds the camera a bit like a sandwich (fingers and thumb straight and parallel)-very differently that something with a right hand grip, and certainly differently than the cradling of a TLR like a Yashica Mat. The focusing is done with the left thumb, by way of a little hump on the focus ring. As I said, all this takes some getting used to, but after maybe ten rolls now, it feels right to me.
That's all I can think of for now. I apologize if this seems a bit scattershot, but I didn't set off to write a camera review.
If anyone has any specific questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them.
-Austin
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