Fuji GF670 service: focus adjustment

Bormental · May 30, 2020

I noticed that infinity focus on my GF670 rangefinder is a bit off. The lines do not align at distant objects. I was looking for some instructions with photos/video but wasn't able to find anything.

Alternatively, I don't mind sending it to a good service that knows how to work on them.
Do you have any advice?

Thanks.

samcomet · May 30, 2020

FWIW I bought a workshop manual on that usual auction website for my Fujica GS645. It was a reprint but suited me for my repairs. Perhaps the same seller has done one for your 670?
Cheers & good luck,
Sam

Oh and BTW he has re-listed the one I bought several times so I think that he does a business of this.

Bormental · May 30, 2020

That's a great idea, what was the exact auction title? I tried searching for "workshop manual" for Fuji, Fujica, camera and got nothing, for any camera.

samcomet · May 30, 2020

this is where I got mine ...........hope this works for you. If not I can send you the page instead of the link.
cheers,
Sam

John Will · May 31, 2020

Bormental said:
That's a great idea, what was the exact auction title? I tried searching for "workshop manual" for Fuji, Fujica, camera and got nothing, for any camera.

Seeing as the camera is the same as the Voigtlander Bessa III perhaps there is a service manual available for the Bessa or information on Bessa adjustments. I also wonder if the focus adjustment is the same as the Bessa II as there are some videos on line of Bessa II repairs and adjustment.

Just some thoughts.
John W.

ic-racer · May 31, 2020

The lines do not align at distant objects

Either collimation at infinity is incorrect (infinity stop) or the rangefinder is incorrect. Unless you know the problem, you have a 50% chance of making it worse.

rknewcomb · Jun 1, 2020

Stephen Gandy's CameraQuest will probably know about this camera and they do camera repair service.

Huss · Jun 1, 2020

rknewcomb said:
Stephen Gandy's CameraQuest will probably know about this camera and they do camera repair service.

Voigtlander: We are the West Coast Voigtlander USA Distributor. We import new Voigtlander products from the factory and resell them to dealers and the public. We do not repair grey market Voigtlander products, warranty or not. Grey market means products not sold by an official Voigtlander USA seller. That includes all foreign Voigtlander sellers, and some unauthorized Voigtlander sellers in the US.

Dan Fromm · Jun 1, 2020

Ayrton Senna said:
What if you bought the camera while overseas? It's not a grey market camera then. Will they refuse to work on it? Even if it is non warranty work?

I thought you died in 1994, and here you are posting on photrio.com.

Bormental · Jun 2, 2020

Quick update for people in the future who'll find this thread by searching. I managed to adjust focus on my GF670 using instructions by the fabulous gentleman named Ken that I found in this old thread:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/fuji-gf670-focus-issue.102986/#post-1362320

The instructions above is all you need. But the video posted above was useful too. This is a different camera, but also made by Voightlander and the mechanism is quite similar. You don't need to remove the top off, but it gives you the clear view of the adjustment screw:

Somewhat relevant too:
https://web.archive.org/web/2017051...ransalerno.com/bessa-rangefinder-calibration/

Huss · Jun 3, 2020

Ayrton Senna said:
What if you bought the camera while overseas? It's not a grey market camera then. Will they refuse to work on it? Even if it is non warranty work?

Yes. Note - this is strictly Voigtlander US policy.
NikonUSA does something similar.

Scott Micciche · Jun 5, 2020

My GF670 was out of alignment and I adjusted it myself quite easily. I used a piece of ground glass on the film plane and adjusted at 1m as well as infinity (football upright 2 fields away). It is so sharp now, it's unbelievable. My only concern is how easily it goes out of adjustment.

If you cannot adjust it yourself, make sure they do a good job and don't accept if you still see it out of focus. The lens is incredibly sharp to the corners even wide open.

Here are some recent samples scanned on an Epson V800 and scaled to 2048x2048, no sharpening.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thekurgan/albums/72157711076119158

Bormental · Jun 5, 2020

Scott, I have adjusted mine simply by making sure the lines align at infinity, so I'm good. But I have to ask: is there a way to get ground glass for less than $100 (I see focusing screens on B&H when I search for "ground glass"). Thanks.

Scott Micciche · Jun 5, 2020

Bormental said:
Scott, I have adjusted mine simply by making sure the lines align at infinity, so I'm good. But I have to ask: is there a way to get ground glass for less than $100 (I see focusing screens on B&H when I search for "ground glass"). Thanks.

I have seen cheap copies for Rolleiflex that come from china. They work well enough for this type of work. Some people use wide scotch tape and it works if it's strong enough to hold up to the loupe you press against it for making the adjustments. I like the ground glass because it's sturdy and place the frosted side on the plane. It makes it easy to check from time to time. I'm glad you got it adjusted.

Bormental · Jun 10, 2020

After completing the RF adjustment my photos are much better. I still make mistakes, and they show up as slight front/back focus, but there's no pattern, i.e. I am just being impatient aligning the patch. However, there are still two things I am struggling with:

The split image within the patch seems to be strangely sensitive to the eye placement relative to the viewfinder. Just moving my eye a bit up/down and on the side, the split-image widens or collapses slightly. This is what causing focus inconsistencies for me. Strangely, I do not have this issue with the Leica (the double image moves up/down when I move my eye up/down, but the "split" stays consistent).
The hard stop at infinity is not infinity, in this position the lens focuses slightly "beyond infinity" i.e. everything is out of focus slightly (and the patch is not 100% aligned). When I align the patch, which is just a tiny turn back from infinity position, I get perfect infinity focus. So now I am puzzled... should do I RF alignment again? The patch does not lie - when it's 100% sharp I get sharp image, but the lens allows just a tiny bit more rotation towards hard stop and then it's a bit blurry... Is there another adjustment for "infinity hard-stop", or is it the same screw?

Scott Micciche · Jun 11, 2020

Bormental said:
After completing the RF adjustment my photos are much better. I still make mistakes, and they show up as slight front/back focus, but there's no pattern, i.e. I am just being impatient aligning the patch. However, there are still two things I am struggling with:

The split image within the patch seems to be strangely sensitive to the eye placement relative to the viewfinder. Just moving my eye a bit up/down and on the side, the split-image widens or collapses slightly. This is what causing focus inconsistencies for me. Strangely, I do not have this issue with the Leica (the double image moves up/down when I move my eye up/down, but the "split" stays consistent).

The hard stop at infinity is not infinity, in this position the lens focuses slightly "beyond infinity" i.e. everything is out of focus slightly (and the patch is not 100% aligned). When I align the patch, which is just a tiny turn back from infinity position, I get perfect infinity focus. So now I am puzzled... should do I RF alignment again? The patch does not lie - when it's 100% sharp I get sharp image, but the lens allows just a tiny bit more rotation towards hard stop and then it's a bit blurry... Is there another adjustment for "infinity hard-stop", or is it the same screw?

My infinity adjustment was more than 300m away, where it lined up. How far was your object when checking infinity? I like to take a few adjustments at 1m, 3m and infinity. I usually find that one at 3m gives me the sharpest images on the ground glass. I use a focus chart on a tripod with a 10x loupe.

Grim Tuesday · Jun 11, 2020

Bormental said:
Scott, I have adjusted mine simply by making sure the lines align at infinity, so I'm good. But I have to ask: is there a way to get ground glass for less than $100 (I see focusing screens on B&H when I search for "ground glass"). Thanks.

I was going to send you a link to an eBay listing for Rolleicord screens - Jimmy Koh's store was selling them for $5 a pop a few months back but it looks like they're all gone. Nevertheless, screens labeled for Rolleiflex or Rolleicord are 6x6 and tend to be relatively cheap.

Bormental · Jun 11, 2020

Scott Micciche said:
My infinity adjustment was more than 300m away, where it lined up. How far was your object when checking infinity? I like to take a few adjustments at 1m, 3m and infinity. I usually find that one at 3m gives me the sharpest images on the ground glass. I use a focus chart on a tripod with a 10x loupe.

Scott, my "infinity" is a tall sequoia tree on the top of a hill about a mile away from my house. There's also downtown skyline behind it, but there's so much haze that it's hard to judge focus. But the point is, when I go to "hard stop" at infinity - everything is slightly blurry, there is not a single object in focus at any distance (easy to see, since I have cars + houses going up the hill, so the frame is filled with objects from 10 feet up to a mile. I am leaning towards doing nothing, after all my 5-20ft focus is pretty good, and I know what true infinity is. But it still sucks that I can't just use hard stop, from the convenience standpoint...

MattKing · Jun 11, 2020

Many cameras are/were designed to focus past infinity.
If they weren't they wouldn't be able to respond to changes in temperature and wear over time of components.

nbagno · Jun 11, 2020

FWIW I just checked my GF670 and as far as I can tell it's it infinity focus at the infinity mark which is also the hard stop point in the lens. As far as repair, in 2015 when I had my Voigtlander Bessa III 667W, it developed a problem so I sent it to Photo Village in New York who is (was?) the east coast distributor. They sent it back to Cosina for repair. They actually, at least from what they told me had to make the part for it which took about 6 months. If I ever have an issue with my GF670, the first call I would make would be to Photo Village just to get their input. (I'm on the West Coast and sent it to the East coast if that tells you anything)...

Bormental · Jun 12, 2020

Ok, here's an update for future GF670 owners searching for answers:

People from the future, I hope the future is better than the present.
I attached a piece of ground glass, generously donated to me by one of the photrio users, to the film plane on the back of the camera with masking tape.
I was able to quickly verify rangefinder accuracy by focusing via a viewfinder and then verifying focus with a loupe pressed against the ground glass, which, frankly, has been a lot of fun! It makes your camera behave and feel like a miniature large-format camera. Try it.
Turns out, my rangefinder is deadly accurate and it does not lie. When two pictures align inside the patch, I have shit in focus.
But the hard stop of the lens is, indeed, slightly beyond infinity, as evidenced by both the rangefinder (patch) and the live image on the groundglass.
Interestingly, when focusing on infinity, I feel a slight "bump" i.e. a change in focus ring resistance when the split-image aligns in the rangefinder, so the infinity is definitely is a "special" position for the focus ring. Yet, it lets me rotate itself past infinity by half-millimeter or so. Maybe there's a separate adjustment for the hard-stop on this camera, or perhaps this little extra "wiggle room" is intentionally left to accommodate for inaccuracies of assembly, this is a folder, after all.

As a side comment, I do not quite get the point of a vertical alignment. The split-image inside the patch goes in/out of sync vertically simply by moving the eye position slightly.

Fuji GF670 service: focus adjustment

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