Sad Fuji News/Happy Voigtländer News -GF670 in Japan only -Bessa III elsewhere!

Lee L · Sep 24, 2008

The five stages of the introduction of a new MF folding camera:

1. Denial:
It's only happening for Japan! I won't ever see one.

2. Anger:
I can't stand any more abuse of the Voigtlander/Heliar/Bessa names!

3. Bargaining:
Can I have it with a 50mm and a 120mm?

4. Depression:
I'll never be able to afford it. What a drag...

5. Acceptance:
I want one NOW!

Lee

aparat · Sep 24, 2008

I think this promises to be an excellent camera. I think it will sell well. I am beginning to save up for it right now.

bnstein · Sep 24, 2008

Looking at the thumbnails (no back view) am I just being worried or does it look like knob wind not lever? That would be a pain :-(. I also hope Fuji learnt from the 645 folder to get something *durable* for the bellows material (a notorious weakness in an otherwise fine camera)

Yes I want one too!! I love the 645 I have, the lens is superb and it is a great travel camera, but 67.....bliss

DaveOttawa · Sep 24, 2008

tim_walls said:
Is TTL metering possible on a camera without a mirror? (I.e. not an SLR.)

[Genuine question by the way, not trying to be a smartarse!]

Yes it is, Leicas have had it using a very simple system for a long time for example.

DaveOttawa · Sep 24, 2008

bnstein said:
Looking at the thumbnails (no back view) am I just being worried or does it look like knob wind not lever? That would be a pain :-(. I also hope Fuji learnt from the 645 folder to get something *durable* for the bellows material (a notorious weakness in an otherwise fine camera)

Yes I want one too!! I love the 645 I have, the lens is superb and it is a great travel camera, but 67.....bliss

The way this camera is likely to be used may make the knob wind acceptable, presumably it will only wind exactly the right distance unlike my original Bessa where there are no click stops to prevent uneven frame spacing.

Samuel Hotton · Sep 24, 2008

A lens with Six elements in four groups sounds like a Planar design.
Sam H.

david b · Sep 24, 2008

I have contacted Voigtlander to offer an APUG discount!!!

Lee L · Sep 24, 2008

TTL metering with a focal plane shutter rangefinder is pretty simple, much more simple than an SLR that automatically opens to full aperture for focusing between shots. TTL metering with a leaf shutter is another matter.

Lee

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Sep 25, 2008

Wonder who's actually making the lens for this...I see a Fujinon and a Heliar. I'm waiting for a price, but I'd be pleased to own one, definately. My RB67 is a bit big to lug around, I only seem to use standard primes given the option, and I quite like 6x6. I'll start sweet talking my local Cosina salesman...

Kevin Caulfield · Sep 25, 2008

Fleath said:
Wonder who's actually making the lens for this...I see a Fujinon and a Heliar. I'm waiting for a price, but I'd be pleased to own one, definately. My RB67 is a bit big to lug around, I only seem to use standard primes given the option, and I quite like 6x6. I'll start sweet talking my local Cosina salesman...

Wow, Alex, that's not bad for a struggling student, but then again not all students are necessarily struggling, and you could trade in your RB. Good luck.

Steve Smith · Sep 25, 2008

aparat said:
I am beginning to save up for it right now.

Me too. I'm up to £3.27 at the moment. I may be able to afford a secondhand one in a few years!

Steve.

ChrisC · Sep 25, 2008

Absolutely brilliant news for the rest of the world. Though knowing our camera market and the prices of things here I think this just means I'll now order it from the US rather than Japan

Andy K · Sep 25, 2008

With this I could thin my cameras down to three... although I'll hang on to the Bronica as I see no way to use filtration on the Bessa III.

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 25, 2008

Maybe someone at Photokina or with larger pictures of the lens can confirm, but it looks like the outermost rim of the lens is threaded for filters.

Soeren · Sep 25, 2008

slnce-z-gsi said:
I will have to manage to persuade my wife (i just can not get used to that word - I used "girlfriend" for 9 years..) that I do actually not WANT one, but NEED one

I just hope the heliar is really a HELIAR and that metering is TTL ...

Does it feel more natural to use the frase with which I ended my speech to my wife at our wedding "Ex girl friend" ?
I'll have to start the persuasion work now as well.
Kind regards

tim_walls · Sep 25, 2008

Lee L said:
TTL metering with a focal plane shutter rangefinder is pretty simple, much more simple than an SLR that automatically opens to full aperture for focusing between shots. TTL metering with a leaf shutter is another matter.

I'm glad it's simple, you can explain how it works then <grin> .

No, seriously, how does it work then?

I mean, for any sort of advanced TTL metering (spot/matrix metering) the incoming light needs to be focused on the metering sensor, which if you don't have a mirror means the sensor needs to be at the film plane. How is this possible if the shutter and film are already there?! (Could you put the sensor on the outside of the shutter curtains I wonder, if you have a metal shutter; focus wouldn't be perfect but would probably be 'good enough' I guess)? Or is there some other arrangement to move the sensor out of the way for shot taking - shutter curtains seem a fairly demanding place to put a delicate optical device!

Like I say, I'm genuinely intrigued - I'm never going to be able to afford a Leica to work out how its metering works so I'm reliant on asking silly questions on APUG

Matus Kalisky · Sep 25, 2008

Soeren said:
Does it feel more natural to use the frase with which I ended my speech to my wife at our wedding "Ex girl friend" ?
I'll have to start the persuasion work now as well.
Kind regards

Thats sounds like the right sollution !

Soeren · Sep 25, 2008

The simple metering is mastered very well by the Bessa R's The meter measures the light reflected from the first shutter curtain. same is used on the old Olympus OM2. Variations is either the whole curtain or a painted area in the middle.
This wont help you much in the case of the GF670/Bessa III 667 since this is a leafshutter camera sans TTL.
Its probably very much like the meter in the M7II
Kind regards

tim_walls · Sep 25, 2008

Soeren said:
The simple metering is mastered very well by the Bessa R's The meter measures the light reflected from the first shutter curtain. same is used on the old Olympus OM2. Variations is either the hole curtain or a painted area in the middle.
This wont help you much in the case of the GF670/Bessa III 667 since this is a leafshutter camera sans TTL.
Its probably very much like the meter in the M7II
Kind regards

Aha! Use the shutter curtain as a mirror/screen!

That's exactly the kind of pleasing cunning solution I was hoping someone would reveal... I can see now why the leaf shutter in this new camera might cause a problem with that technique, though

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 25, 2008

TTL metering is a nice feature, but it doesn't get you that much anyway with a fixed-lens rangefinder. They can't focus that closely in general, so you're not often in bellows factor territory, and in any case, that information could be detected from the focus lever (Canon implemented this on one of their earlier auto flash units by means of a ring that attached to the lens and coupled with the focusing ring) or the rangefinder mechanism I suppose. TTL metering would compensate for filters, but I'm usually not changing filters so often that I can't do it manually by resetting the ISO dial or the exposure compensation dial. You don't have the option of long lenses or wide lenses that would have a different angle of view from the meter's sensor.

Mick Fagan · Sep 25, 2008

Two years ago I purchased a mono rail 4x5, last year I purchased a 4x5 wooden folder outfit, this year I purchased a Razzle 4x5 converted Polaroid.

Next year I'm sure I can convince my better half that a tiny little 120 folder is nothing, compared to what I have been spending of late, we'll see

Actually if I remember somewhere among the threads, Ilford tried to get Fuji to spool 220 B&W film for them, now it would appear the reasoning for their apparent refusal to co-operate, is out in the open. Pretty much any 220 film going through these units, will not be of Ilford manufacture!

220 film in one of these cameras makes sense, especially if you are trying to travel light.

I believe that this is a right camera at the right time.

Mick.

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 25, 2008

Actually, I don't think Ilford would be competing with Fuji on 220, because Fuji isn't offering any B&W films in 220 as far as I can tell, unless maybe there is something only available on the Japanese market, but I checked Megaperls and didn't find any there. As far as I know, the only B&W film currently available in 220 is TXP.

Soeren · Sep 25, 2008

David A. Goldfarb said:
TTL metering is a nice feature, but it doesn't get you that much anyway with a fixed-lens rangefinder. They can't focus that closely in general, so you're not often in bellows factor territory, and in any case, that information could be detected from the focus lever (Canon implemented this on one of their earlier auto flash units by means of a ring that attached to the lens and coupled with the focusing ring) or the rangefinder mechanism I suppose. TTL metering would compensate for filters, but I'm usually not changing filters so often that I can't do it manually by resetting the ISO dial or the exposure compensation dial. You don't have the option of long lenses or wide lenses that would have a different angle of view from the meter's sensor.

But TTL is also nice when you are not limited to one lens. In the case of Mamiya 7II you have a meter with a fixed angle of view but different angle of view from the lenses making it a spotmeter with a 43mm and an average meter with the 150mm. I would get in trouble with that one.
Another nice solution is the QL17 GIII where the meter cell is on the lens just above the glass inside the filter thread. Offcource thats a fixed lens only option
kind regards

elekm · Sep 25, 2008

If this is a leaf-shutter camera, TTL metering would be very difficult or so complex that you would be asking for mechanical/electronic problems at some point.

A leaf shutter is normally closed and only opens when the exposure is made. To enable TTL metering, you would need to change how a leaf shutter works so that it's open, which would require a blind at the film plane, if you wanted to read the film plane. Taking a photo would then require the leaf shutter to close, the blind to retract, the leaf shutter to make its exposure, the blind to then close and the leaf shutter to then open. These require mechanical precision on the first exposure as well as the 10,000th exposure.

Then there is the problem of reading the film plane, which is considerably larger than 35mm. Do you simply center-weight it? Spot meter?

Now I know some of you will think that you could do away with the blind and have exposure determined at the time the photo is taken. All good and fine, but then you'll never get a preview of what the exposure is, unless you add a second meter cell on the body. That would add complexity and cost.

Or, alternatively, you would need to insert a sensor in front of the leaf shutter blades, which adds complexity to the design, because you need to account for extraneous reflections from the shutter blades, as well as the extra light that comes from the sensor being located so close to the front element.

All in all, neither is a workable solution.

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Sep 25, 2008

Kevin Caulfield said:
Wow, Alex, that's not bad for a struggling student, but then again not all students are necessarily struggling, and you could trade in your RB. Good luck.

Sadly my student ass lays cement sleepers and works in vineyards all holidays, luckily it finances my addiction pretty well so far...I could do with a Hasselblad too though. Purely for educational purposes, and all
I'm hoping this thing comes in under or around $1,000, then it'll be within reach for a few months saving.

Wasn't there some speculation last time around that one of the windows in the top of the cameras was for metering? Or did that just turn out to be part of the rangefinder mechanism?

Sad Fuji News/Happy Voigtländer News -GF670 in Japan only -Bessa III elsewhere!

Lee L

aparat

bnstein

DaveOttawa

DaveOttawa

Samuel Hotton

david b

Lee L

Alex Bishop-Thorpe

Kevin Caulfield

Steve Smith

ChrisC

Andy K

David A. Goldfarb

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Soeren

tim_walls

Matus Kalisky

Soeren

tim_walls

David A. Goldfarb

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Mick Fagan

David A. Goldfarb

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Soeren

elekm

Alex Bishop-Thorpe

Sad Fuji News/Happy Voigtländer News -GF670 in Japan only -Bessa III elsewhere!

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