5 Frames with a Fuji GX680 – By Sergio Moura

I Can’t really remember when, but my interest in photography grew really early. Our family camera was a very simple Agfamatic 100 and we used it mostly on summer vacations. I really cannot remember at what age did I started, but it was at very early age that I first “kidnapped” the camera and began to shoot most of our family photos.

As a result there are not many photographs of me over that time period. Later on, while attending high-school, I enrolled a really small two week photography summer workshop. The first week was mostly theory and history of photography – the week after we would get our hands dirty both shooting and learning darkroom techniques.

I really learned a lot and got in touch with some of the photography masters we all know of.

– I got hooked!

I knew I had to keep shooting and developing, and to keep costs low it didn’t take long for me to buy a nasty smelling, soviet union built, portable enlarger kit – very low quality, but hey, it was the best my “lawn mowing” money could afford.

By that time my camera was a Pentax P30T, I loved it and I felt it was unbeatable with the 50mm f2 lens. As I left high school, my interest got a bit lost since I had most my time consumed by my architecture degree, until one day something peculiar happened.

My Pentax rewind crank got broken.

Looking for a replacement on the auction site, I got astonished at what I saw: digital had kicked in and all those top notch cameras I had only dreamed about in the past, were suddenly very affordable.

GAS!!!

I don’t feel guilty of GAS, I like to try new cameras, the holy search for the perfect camera is, for sure, a meaningful purpose on life!

(hell no!)

And all this talk – as all this GAS – brought me to this moment when I can introduce to you one of my ‘monster’cameras.

The Fuji GX680! Built for the studio, this is a large and heavy camera. Why on earth would I want this camera?

The GX680 has many interesting features! You get large format features without the expense or the inconvenience. Tilt and shift camera movements, large 6×8 negative and a big bright screen that makes it a joy to focus and compose on.

What amazed me the most was the quality of the lenses. They are, maybe, some of the best glass I have ever got my hands on, and the prices are really good too

It does have some quirks. Did I tell you she’s heavy?  She really is. I have to transport the camera on my shoulder, while attached to the tripod.

The battery dependency is also very real. The shutter needs electrons juice to fire, and even the backs have a lithium internal battery that after 20 years has most certainly gone bad. Mine was and I had to open it, desolder the old one solder a new one.

But you forget all those quirks when you see those gorgeous large negatives!

Hope you enjoy my 5 frames, they were all shot on a solo motorcycle ride around Serra da Freita, in Northern Portugal. I used the 50mm and 100mm lenses with Fuji Reala that I home developed.

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