Month January 2017

Brand New (NOS) Fujifilm GF670s!

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Fujifilm GF670 Professional 6×7 Camera

At a Glance

The Fujifilm GF670 Professional 6×7/6×6 dual-format folding camera is another shining example of Fujifilm’s unwavering commitment to preserving and nurturing the culture of photography. Designed with the traveling professional in mind, the GF670 is lightweight and sports a Gauss-type EBC Fujinon lens allowing the photographer to not compromise quality for ease of travel.

Product View

GF670 Professional Camera

Support & Downloads

It’s amazing to think that Fujifilm USA recently found an undisclosed amount of these beautiful cameras in their warehouse. They were then sold (as best as I can tell) to B&H in New York for sale to the public. It looks like the first guess pricing was around $1899 then quickly up to $1999 and now on B&H’s site they’re at $2199 or so. They’re taking pre-orders now with availability in February. Released in early 2009? and discontinued in 2014. I would love to be able to put one of these in our collection – but it’s not gonna happen!

Maybe for you? Check out B&H’s site for more.

Chris

Sankei-en… Yokohama’s Beautiful Gem

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Escape the hustle of the big city – Sankei-en is Yokohama’s beautiful gem.

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Soon the sakura and azalea will bloom. Photographers will come. School children and couples. Families love Sankei-en.

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It was a pleasant ride to Sankei-en from our house so we went often.

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Admission – 100 yen. All smiles.

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Sakura from long ago. Avenue D in Naka-ku, Honmoku. 1979

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Spring returns to Sankei-en soon. The blossoms will be everywhere. Come to this spot and enjoy!

Images from 1978 and 1979. Canon F-1 and Canon AE-1. Kodak Kodachrome film.

Thank you for your visit.

Chris & Carol ^.^

Fujica GW690 part 2

Chris and Carol 3 Comments

Just back from the Fujica’s first photo assignment in the US. What a simple and fun camera to use! The viewfinder (rangefinder) is super bright and big! It made it easy to compose my images and focus.

Yeah the leaf shutter going off isn’t going to get a bunch of oohs and ahhs from the crowd – it works and that’s what matters. The shutter sounds just like our Fujipet from 1958. Stay with what you know Fuji Photo!

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It took up the entire camera bag! I only had room for some lens wipes and the lens cap. Just back from its test shots.

The camera did draw some attention from the tourists that were downtown. It’s fun to answer their questions about film vs. digital (we love both) and the most common question – why would you take pictures with such an old camera? The weather was gorgeous too today – bright blue sky and and plenty of strong Florida sunshine. It took no time for me to burn through the 8 exposures!

When I advanced the film after exposure number 8, it took only 5 strokes (maybe only 4) of the film advance lever to free the film fully from the supply roll. Thinking that I’d better be cautious, I decided to remove the film in my dark bag at home.

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All went well in the dark bag. The roll had properly wound itself.

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We wish Fujifilm still made Neopan 400.

Now that the first part of the test is done, time to send off the roll to ‘The Darkroom’ for processing and digital scans. We should see something online from them by late Friday afternoon (it’s Tuesday now). Time to head to the post office!

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Check back soon to see the finished results. Thanks for your visit!

C&C ^.^

Fujica GW690… Fuji Photo Film’s Venerable Workhorse

Chris and Carol 4 Comments

Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. – Tokyo

Fujica GW690 Professional – 1978 version. Yes it’s big. Yes it’s a bit heavy too. But who doesn’t love big 6x9cm negatives! We had an Asahi Pentax 6×7 SLR for a while in our active collection and thoroughly enjoyed the images it produced. The 6×7 and 6×9 in our opinion are great formats. We still shoot in squares though – it’s fun to compose a 6×6 frame on a twin-lens reflex. If anything will slow your photography down it’s that.

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This camera arrived yesterday and it’s all cleaned up and ready to go. This is a heavily used (think venerable workhorse) GW690 with all sorts of dings, dents and scrapes to show for it’s almost four decades of use. We imagine it’s seen more than a few tour groups in its time – now it’s time to slow down a bit. We purchased it to be a user camera for some fine art prints we want to create and sell on our online site. We normally print on 8.5 x 11 inch Canon paper with an occasional bump to 13 x 19 inches and the 6×9 format is perfect.

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We’re big fans of Fuji cameras and this one will earn its keep in our studio. I’m headed out this afternoon with a roll of Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros loaded to test it out.

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It’s a simple camera – completely analog. No onboard exposure meter, no auto film advance, no auto focus – just what we wanted.

We chose the GW690 vice the “newer” models (II and III) because I’m not a big fan of the built-in lens hood on the later models (gets in the way). The shutter settings (leaf shutter) and aperture settings are right next to one another which makes it super easy to see the relationship each has on the other. Focusing is quick on this model and the rangefinder window is bright and easy to see.

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A 35mm box of film gives you a comparison to just how big the Fujica is. By the way, this model was the last to be called a Fujica.

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Ready to rock some Neopan!

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We thought it would look good with some vintage Fuji Film beside it. The film expired in 1964!

We’ll have the results next week as we send our film out to ‘The Darkroom’ for their professional development and scans. 6×9 on 120 roll film produces only 8 exposures so I should be able to shoot in one afternoon. Let’s see… with the purchase of the film, processing and shipping it’s going to cost about $25 per 8 images. Yikes!

Thanks for your visit. Chris & Carol ^.^

 

Yokohama 1979

Chris and Carol 7 Comments

Carol and I lived in Yokohama from 1977 to early 1980. We have such wonderful memories of our time living there – memories that still make us smile today. Specifically, we lived in US Navy Housing Area 2 (283-D) which was in Honmoku, Naka-ku. Back then it was an industrial area with a refinery (see pic below) close by and of course the port with its thousands of automobiles and small trucks waiting to ship out to the States.

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Oil refinery as seen from a hill near our house.

Here, in no particular order, are some street scenes in and around ‘Yoko’. We can tell from our Google Earth visits, that the area has changed dramatically since the Navy left in 1982. There’s an elementary school where our house once stood and the houses we see now are big by what we considered big for Japanese houses back in the late 1970s. All of these images were shot using my Canon F-1 or Carol’s AE-1. We used Kodak Kodachrome and Ektachrome slide film as shooting with color negative film was beyond my Sailor’s pay.

Enjoy this trip back in time and please forgive us if our memory of the exact location is wrong. ^.^

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Avenue D, 16, headed straight to Sakuragicho and right to Kamiakin and Yamashita.

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A gas station along Avenue D, located just across the road from our base housing. We would tell people who were coming to visit us to be on the lookout for the ‘humpin’ turtle’ sign as it was near the turn into the housing area.

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A little too close to the local Keihin Kyuko train in Sugita.

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We know… a pay phone with a dial!

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Driving through one of the many tunnels along Avenue D (16) from Yokosuka to Yokohama.

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Area 2, US Navy base housing, Yokohama. Our house is the middle of the three two-story houses on the left. The bay, port and the refinery can be seen through the haze in the distance. Honmoku Elementary School 横浜市立本牧小学校 is located here now.

Thanks for your visit – time travel can be such fun! We have a video on Sony Betamax tape that we will have transferred to digital (soon). Lots of neat shots around town with rides on the bus and trains and a walk through a local shopping street. Stay tuned!

Chris and Carol ^.^

 

 

Yokosuka and Yokohama

Chris and Carol 2 Comments

Memories of our time in Japan – 1977 to 1980. We lived in Yokohama, Naka-ku. Lovely place. Wonderful people. Every day an adventure. As I read current blogs from Japan, it strikes me that so many signs are now in English. Back in the day (as they say) that wasn’t the case. These two signs were within walking distance of major U.S. Navy installations. No English. No problem. I’m sorry to say that we never learned to read kanji or katakana but we at least learned what the kanji characters looked like for where we wanted to be.

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Yokosuka train station, Keihin Kyuko Line schedule heading north to Yokohama.

I always tried for the “green” trains at 15, 35 and 55 after the hour. These were the fastest to Yoko!

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Waiting for Bus 8 to Yokohama train station. We knew to look for the kanji character that looked like an old style camera on a tripod as that was Yokohama. Hey it worked!

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Bus driver giving me the look.

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This was the only sign that I can remember that had English on it near our house in Yokohama. BTW, it was a hot, hazy and humid summer day on the Kanto Plain that day.

Anyway, no complaints here, but as you can see not much in the way of English (none actually). That was Japan in the late 1970s. We had a blast!

Thanks for your visit!

Chris and Carol ^.^

More on our faked Yashica J-5 in “pro-black”…

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Some time ago we purchased (through an online auction) what was listed as a rare black body Yashica J-5. The camera was sold by a well known camera dealer with a long track record of excellent prior sales. We know from our research and hands-on experience that Yashica’s first ‘Pro-Black’ 35mm SLR was the J-3 as we own two of them and have sold others that were in our collection.

I (Chris) knew that there was about a 99% chance that this J-5 was faked and I don’t have a problem with buying modified or restored cameras as long as it is disclosed as such. But I took a chance on this one even though there were numerous red flags about its originality. The bidding was through an online auction site in another country and my desire to own this ‘rare’ camera got the best of me. My purchase bid went for much more than a typical J-5 should go for and I actually paid more for it (not including the over-the-top shipping fees) than one would pay for a genuine ‘Pro-Black’ body (from the Yashica factory) J-3. In our years of research, we’ve never come across anything in print from Yashica about the black body J-3. No sales brochures (Japanese or English) have a mention of it – but we know that they did produce one a we’ve had a few and have kept track of them online in our database.

Prior to bidding on the faked black  J-5, I asked the agent representing this camera if in fact was a genuine, previously unknown black J-5. His answer was that the seller said it was… no worries.

After looking at my new fake for some two years now, I’ve decided to remove the still fresh black enamel paint and reveal the satin chrome paint underneath its black mask. It was shocking just how easy the paint was to remove with alcohol and cotton swabs.

I wrote to the seller’s agent to complain that the camera was in fact faked and after some time (2 weeks) he came back with a no it wasn’t. Even with the pictures in front of them they denied that it was a re-paint. Oh well.

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Clue number 1 – the presence of orange peel in the black paint.

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As received from the auction. From a distance it looked to be all original. When I opened the shipping box the first time I could tell something wasn’t right, the smell of fresh paint! Got me!

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As you can now plainly see, the original satin chrome (silver) body is now exposed and in this image the orange peel black enamel paint is obvious – especially around the ‘YASHICA’. The leatherette has been removed by me and the residual adhesive remains visible at this point of the discovery phase.
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Upon closer inspection (now that the black is gone) it appears that the original satin chrome (silver) factory finish was heavily sanded almost to the point of the brass showing through. The black enamel comes off super easy with 91% isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab. For some strange reason, the factory etching of the J-5 logo was filled-in with white paint before it was buried under the black. Silver body Yashicas were filled-in with black from the factory.
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Another view (right rear of the body) of the original factory finish underneath the faked black top coat.
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It will take a bunch of cotton swabs and plenty of isopropyl alcohol to rid this J-5 of its black top-coat.

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So lesson learned for me… only trust in what you know exists… if it’s not documented elsewhere as existing then there’s a good chance it’s been faked. Ask lots of questions. But, and it’s a big but (pardon the pun), Yashica has never mentioned that they made a black body J-3 in 1963 so it was possible that they made a few black J-5s.

The good news in all of this is that this camera is now in the home stretch of a complete rebuild and will be better than ever. It has been re-imagined as a tribute camera to the U.S. Navy. Stay tuned!

Many thanks for your visit, Chris and Carol

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Costly Mistake…

Chris and Carol 4 Comments

It’s the best looking non-working Yashica TLR in our collection! There. Got that out of the way. This Yashica-Mat medium format camera is from 1968 and is in mint condition. The Mat had a super long run for Yashica – 1957 to 1973. Lots of pretty Mats out there to be had. Lots of dogs too. Sometimes the dogs work great and sometimes the pretty ones are dead in the water (DIW).

This one is DIW (nautical term meaning not moving). In my haste to add a good looking Mat to our collection, I overlooked a fatal flaw that often happens with these cameras…

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Do you see the flaw that I missed?

How about now?

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Look closely… do you see it yet?

How about more of a hint?

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Okay, I’ll point it out.

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Missing self timer lever. Did you see it right away? Pat yourself on the back if you did.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, in my haste to add a nice Mat to our collection, I failed to notice that the self timer lever was missing. No big deal right? It is and I know better. The lever is a small thingy with a little red dot of paint on the end of it. When it’s there, it should be all the way to the right (when looking straight on at the camera’s face). If it’s missing (as in this case) don’t buy it unless you enjoy repairing cameras. If it’s all the way to the left then ask questions of the seller. What happens is that the self timer lever should not be missing and should not be engaged to the left. In the instruction booklet, Yashica clearly cautions – “Be sure to move the synchro selector to the X position when using the Self-timer”.

The synchro selector lever is the little thingy sticking out just above the right thumb wheel as seen in image 1 (it has a little yellow dot of paint on it). The X position is pushing the level down (you can just make out the red X in the image above).

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Syncro selector lever (yellow dot thingy) in the up M position (M is in yellow on the camera body).

Remember, yellow dot thingy lever up is in the M position. Yellow dot lever pointing down is in the red X position. A review: no self timer lever = run! Usually someone has forced the lever one way or another because the lever is stuck to the left. If the lever is in the left position and the yellow dot lever is in the up or M position then ask the seller a bunch of questions. Please ask if the shutter button trips the shutter when pressed. More then likely the answer will be no.

In closing, if the camera you’re interested in is photographed slightly turned as in this example below, it’s easy to overlook the missing self timer lever. Ask questions before purchasing it.

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Here is an example of a Yashica-Mat with the self timer lever almost all the way to the left. I checked another image of this camera and the syncro selector lever is on M (which is in the up position). This is a classic case of what I’ve been talking about. You need to ask the seller if the shutter fires. More likely it does not. Run!

Completely my fault for not checking the lever and not asking questions of the seller.

Thanks for your visit… comments are always appreciated.

Chris