Up for sale is a Fujica GS645S that's in lovely cosmetic condition. I've had a bit of an odyssey with this camera, some of which you can read in this thread. The outline, which you should read, spoilered for convenience:
So, the condition: The body is in great shape. I seriously can't find a scratch or scuff on it apart from some peeling of the sticker that covers the bottom plate. The shutter speeds all seem fine, and the lens is in pretty good shape as far as I can tell (I think there's some light haze around the edges of an element, but I'm not sure since I'm terrified of cleaning lenses). The rangefinder patch is good and contrasty enough (though you have to have your eye really well centered to see it perfectly). The lens protector bar is firmly in place. There are two issues:
1. As I said, it's got a 'slow' rangefinder thanks to the lubricant in the assembly becoming gummy over the years. As a result, when focusing from far to near, the rangefinder takes a bit of time to catch up. I've read that it's perfectly possible to fix this oneself, but I don't think it's worth my trying it.
2. I still can't be completely certain, since my camera-scanning setup is imperfect and I don't think it's holding the film quite flat enough, but I definitely think that one end of the frame is softer than the other. This only really manifests itself in the corners, as you can see in the sample shots. Other than that, it's very sharp.
Really, I think the camera is usable as is, as long as you work around its foibles. But I have found at least one camera shop that'll service it, Advance Camera in Portland, who said that a CLA including lens calibration would be $190. I don't like the camera enough to spend that money myself, but if you do like it it's probably worth it!
Here's a little Flickr album of sample shots with descriptions, all available in reasonably high res (click the download button, then "view all sizes").
Price: $415 including shipping, PP fees
95% of the time, the only copies of this camera you'll find on eBay are from Japan. Currently, the cheapest one of those will set you back around $600 once shipping and taxes are factored in...and it's only that cheap because the lens has scratches and a big patch of fungus. There does happen to be one available from the US at $525, but that's got a loose lens bar, so who knows what else is wrong with it. I've priced it so that if you decide to do the CLA, you'll end up paying in total about as much as a Japanese camera that might need its own CLA anyway.
US buyers only, please!
1. Bought the camera reasonably inexpensively since it had the apparently-common 'slow rangefinder' issue. Tested it with a roll of Catlabs 80 film and found that infinity focus was off. The film itself was all kinds of messed up - warped and bumpy like beach sand - but it was all I had to go on because I was about to take a trip. Assuming that infinity focus was actually back a bit, I decided on what I thought might be an acceptable hyperfocal distance for landscape shots on said trip.
2. That hyperfocal distance turned out to be too short, since barely any of my landscape shots came out sharp enough. I also noticed that one side of the frame tended to look softer than the other.
3. After testing at the infinity stop with a non-Catlabs film, I realized that infinity was indeed fine, and that the aforementioned decentering wasn't nearly as bad as I'd worried it was. The rangefinder does seem to be calibrated well, though I can't say I've been great at focusing it thus far.
4. I decided that the camera isn't for me. It's very compact for a MF camera, but I wanted really compact and think I'll try a folder next. I also don't love the portrait orientation.
2. That hyperfocal distance turned out to be too short, since barely any of my landscape shots came out sharp enough. I also noticed that one side of the frame tended to look softer than the other.
3. After testing at the infinity stop with a non-Catlabs film, I realized that infinity was indeed fine, and that the aforementioned decentering wasn't nearly as bad as I'd worried it was. The rangefinder does seem to be calibrated well, though I can't say I've been great at focusing it thus far.
4. I decided that the camera isn't for me. It's very compact for a MF camera, but I wanted really compact and think I'll try a folder next. I also don't love the portrait orientation.
So, the condition: The body is in great shape. I seriously can't find a scratch or scuff on it apart from some peeling of the sticker that covers the bottom plate. The shutter speeds all seem fine, and the lens is in pretty good shape as far as I can tell (I think there's some light haze around the edges of an element, but I'm not sure since I'm terrified of cleaning lenses). The rangefinder patch is good and contrasty enough (though you have to have your eye really well centered to see it perfectly). The lens protector bar is firmly in place. There are two issues:
1. As I said, it's got a 'slow' rangefinder thanks to the lubricant in the assembly becoming gummy over the years. As a result, when focusing from far to near, the rangefinder takes a bit of time to catch up. I've read that it's perfectly possible to fix this oneself, but I don't think it's worth my trying it.
2. I still can't be completely certain, since my camera-scanning setup is imperfect and I don't think it's holding the film quite flat enough, but I definitely think that one end of the frame is softer than the other. This only really manifests itself in the corners, as you can see in the sample shots. Other than that, it's very sharp.
Really, I think the camera is usable as is, as long as you work around its foibles. But I have found at least one camera shop that'll service it, Advance Camera in Portland, who said that a CLA including lens calibration would be $190. I don't like the camera enough to spend that money myself, but if you do like it it's probably worth it!
Here's a little Flickr album of sample shots with descriptions, all available in reasonably high res (click the download button, then "view all sizes").
Price: $415 including shipping, PP fees
95% of the time, the only copies of this camera you'll find on eBay are from Japan. Currently, the cheapest one of those will set you back around $600 once shipping and taxes are factored in...and it's only that cheap because the lens has scratches and a big patch of fungus. There does happen to be one available from the US at $525, but that's got a loose lens bar, so who knows what else is wrong with it. I've priced it so that if you decide to do the CLA, you'll end up paying in total about as much as a Japanese camera that might need its own CLA anyway.
US buyers only, please!
