Fujica GW690III – Work More, Shoot Less

Actually, the camera is regular sized, I just have tiny hands.

Medium format is a difficult commitment for me, especially when covering a situation requiring fast decisions between close up, mid, wide, portrait, moments, and so on. In good conditions with a 35mm camera and any standard lens (21/35/50/90) I can do this reasonably well, the lens not mattering as much as the iterative process that 36+ frames per roll allows, usually at under 0.50p/frame. I can’t remember the last time I bought a roll of 120 film for less than £8, so every frame on this camera, with 8 frames per roll, is costing me more than £1/frame.

Medium format film responds very nicely to a stand development process, and everything you see in this article was achieved with Ilfotec HC approximately 1+79, and a time of just over an hour.

On average, even with a series or sequence of images, what I am really after is one image, a single photograph, the definitive article for that story or moment. Depending on the equipment I have with me this will be achieved in different ways. If I carry this camera with me on a particular day, and manage to make the definitive image of that day with it, onto the size of the negative, that real estate, it will be a step beyond – but not much more than that.

8 frames feels like not a lot (approximately 1/5th regular 36 shot roll of 35mm); but as I’m only ever after one, the best one, this camera either gives it or it doesn’t – and when it doesn’t it’s without doubt my fault rather than a technical error. Everything has to go right for an image this large to work.

If someone steps into frame that you didn’t see, a slight obstruction, it can’t be ignored, or salvaged. If you mess up exposure, it will be very apparent, and you have to hope it ends up feeling like an artistic decision. If you miss the moment, you missed it. Very unforgiving. Again though, it only needs to work out once to justify this camera. One frame that makes bringing the camera worth the bulk in your bag, the switch up from your 35mm standard to the larger format.

Negative size is the core appeal of this camera. I’d even say it’s one step down from large format, being the largest standard 120 negative achievable (not counting the panoramic equivalent). I believe I started off in medium format with a Mamiya RZ67, but I struggled with the mirrored viewing screen, and justifying the weight when I was working at that time (2018/2019) with a very light setup. Selling that, I worked with a C330, and here again the size was restrictive for the form factor, and the TLR meant I missed framing due to the reversed view. I also struggled composing in squares.

I tried a Bronica SQ-A and Mamiya 6, both square again, so I didn’t really have a clear use scenario and only brought them out sort of from obligation when I knew I’d be making portraits. I ended up using the Bronica to make one of the images that ended up in Portrait of Britain, a photograph I am happy with, but it highlights the weakness of square format to me, it isn’t really a “composition” it’s just a centred subject in the middle of the square. The relationship is internal between the subjects, less with the environment, which I like to include when working in a rectangle.

My compositions rely on relationship, and I simply don’t have the eye to see a composition within a square, a rectangle has weighting and hierarchy, and allows me to better work with interconnected elements and hints and happenings.

It should have been obvious from the start. I should never have strayed from the rectangle. As rangefinders are my photographic approach, especially Leica M cameras, the Fujica GW690III, or as popularly dubbed “Texas Leica”, ie what I already know works for me, but bigger, should have been such an easy decision. It took cycling through all that wasted time and money and squares before arriving here. Back where I started, a rectangular frame, mid-length lens, just a larger capturing medium. This particular rectangle is the same as a standard 35mm frame: 2:3 = 6:9.

Now whether it’s portraits, moments, or details, I know that if I need it, I can rely on this versatile 40ish mm equivalent lens to deliver me the largest negative I am likely to ever produce. I can use this without adjusting my workflow from my M6. I can run up, pre-metered, focus and compose, and make a “moment” image. I can slow down in an interaction and craft a portrait. I can use flash in low light, or make a landscape if I’m so inclined.

Closest focus is 1 meter, and with the size and weight of the physical glass being moved it is much slower to focus than any nifty M lens. Working in a crowd, such as during the Blessing of the Thames, I preset the focus at 1m, and moved myself while using the rangefinder patch to approximate distance. For this portrait I think I was at 1/125ths, and was still slightly in motion as I pressed the shutter.

The result, as you can see, misses the near eye but still achieves a fast, accurate portrait. The imperfection is that much more evident, where in 35mm it would perhaps be masked by the tolerances of the deeper depth of field. I would not have been able to make this with an SLR top-finder style 120 camera, too slow to flow through the crowd, frame, and press the shutter.

I did consider the wide version of this camera, the GSW690III, which has a 28ish mm equivalent lens, but I think that would be more of a street-chaos centric lens and less of an all rounder. I know that my 35mm and 50mm compositions make a large fraction of my overall portfolio, so this at 40ish fits right in. In tandem, alongside a wider lens such as 21/24/28 on my M, this camera fills a roll that would normally be another M with 35/50mm dual wielded. The potential to work a scene on 35mm, switch to this for a standout frame, and switch back seamlessly is deeply inviting.

I originally saw medium format as a solution for portraits. A slower paced, methodical approach. I still see it as a great portrait format, but the versatility here cannot be overstated. I am not held back by needing to overthink composition before settling on the simplest way of fitting something neatly into a square. I don’t need to change mindset from what I am used to, and the benefit there should not be overlooked.

So far I have shot a few rolls through this camera, and already prefer it to those aforementioned medium format cameras I’ve worked with previously. I have more keepers, roughly one per roll so far, which is a good hit rate, but I can do better. The leaf shutter makes handheld work easy, even at low speeds. A few of my images in the article were made on tripod, with a cable release, for still life and deep depth of field. This portrait of Reverend Sister Yoshe Maruta was made at 1/8ths, wide open at f/3.5, with a tripod. Thanks to her perfect stillness the image is incredibly sharp, with a lovely rendering of the kitchen behind her.

I don’t think there’s a huge amount about the final result that screams “medium format”, certainly not a signature “look” as with the 105mm lens on a Pentax 67 or similar. I think I could achieve these results using something like a 35mm f/1.4, or 50mm f/2 on small format film. I don’t particularly care about bokeh, I tend to work stopped quite far down if not all the way, working with what’s in focus, the story in the frame, the context, and not whether everything peripheral to that has some kind of magical out of focus feeling, or clinical smoothness to it.

I brought this camera with me to Westminster Bridge for the procession and mourning ritual commemorating Imam Musa Kazim, which last year resulted in what I described as my most divisive image of the year. I made a few frames with this camera, using flash, and am happy with this candid portrait of a young boy participating in the Matam.

As a way to lampshade my previous efforts on this story, my solution was not a change in myself or my approach to documentation, but in a wider awareness and effort towards context greater than myself. Previously, only myself and a couple of photographers were working at this event, but sharing the details more widely, including in writing about it here, meant at least a dozen other photographers turned up, many working with film, others with more traditional press digital setups. Plurality of perspective and angles both literal and metaphorical, means a broader set of evidence, testimony, to support the truthful representation of this situation, although i am sure there will still be distortion, the weight lies with the multitudes of shared accounts in harmony, refuting malinformation.

At a New Moon Ceremony in the middle of the Medicine Wheel in Milton Keynes, as a small fire was lit, I used a fancy flash borrowed from Sagar for a frame, but it did not fire. I switched over to my £5 flash, which I’d already tested and knew to work perfectly, and made up for the wasted frame. Moral there is never to trust Sagar’s equipment over my own.

Scanning these large frames with an Epson V500 takes time. The holding mask only allows a single 6×9 frame per pass, so I am constantly realigning the next one, swapping out strips and so on. With a 6×6 I can batch scan two at a time, although there are 4 more frames overall to work with. The slower back-end of the process again means I need to really be sure that every single image I make with this is worth that effort. With 35mm it’s trivial to scan the entire roll and curate later, but with this I need to study the roll while it’s drying, and be highly discretionary in selecting what makes it onto the flatbed.

I have never really travelled with anything other than 35mm, but this camera seems ideal as a portable, relatively nimble, “medium+” format machine. I can easily see this working out very nicely for scenes in India, or the States, and on projects I’m in the process of working on here in England. I definitely want to take this camera to Wales.

For projects where I may want to print some images large in the darkroom for a gallery finale, this will serve perfectly. I can even see the potential in making contact prints as a standard, not enlarged outcome, on 5×7, where the size of the negative would be a direct transfer and result in a more playful physical artefact.

What more is there? Shutter lock, nice to have. Front shutter button, clever and nice to have for the size. Shutter counter I’ll never look at. Spirit level on the top plate I’ll never look at. Nice built quality. Sliding hood I can take or leave, but I get why it’s there. All of the things you can read about in other people’s reviews.

Most significantly, and how I knew that this would work out as my medium format camera, is that the photographs I’ve made feel like my photographs. They are in line with what I would make with an M and 35mm-50mm ish lens, exposing onto on rectangular film. Unlike squares, which feel like cramped translations of an image I might take, but with a bit of space trimmed from the edges, and weight removed where there would otherwise be context, or breathing room.

Thanks for reading! If you’ve enjoyed my thoughts and photographs here, please consider following my Instagram where I share a rolling feed of images from my archive. I buy the majority of my film from Analogue Wonderland.

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