I shot my first real roll through my recently acquired GW690 last week. When I say “real” roll, it’s actually the second one – the first was a roll of Velvia that the previous owner had left in the camera when they sold it. It had seven unused frames which, in my eagerness to try out the camera, and the somewhat temperemental relationship I have with that particular film, meant that I was mostly unhappy with the results. The compositions were not especially interesting, the exposures were not good – I blew the highlights significantly in most of the shots – and my scans were disappointing in their colour reproduction. As a result I’ve not uploaded a sigle frame from the roll.
For this second attempt I used something I knew I should have more success with – at least in the exposure and scanning apects, if not the composition of the images (although, in this, I hope I still managed to get something nice). The results are much better than the first set, although still not quite perfect and, given the relative expense of using the camera – just eight shots per roll! – I need to up my game, slow down, and pay full attention to what I’m doing. Also, at this satge, I still have that “exciting new camera” feeling, so I’m probably not doing the best I can. Most of the shots are nice though, but a couple are slightly soft due to camera shake (I think I maybe need to do some weight training before using this handheld 🙂 ), and a couple of slightly dull compositions.
The photo posted today is one of the frames I liked. The curve of the road is nice and the light is good. It also shows the very nice results that the lens on the GW690 can produce.
More to come soon…
Fujica GW690 & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.
Taken on 20 December 2020
Steel City Snapper photography 
If I may just ask, where you get yours from UK or overseas?
I’ve been looking and what I can see the best examples all seem to be in Japan which means paying import duties.
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I got mine from a UK seller (although I believe they had originally bought it from Japan). I paid more for it than I might have done otherwise (although not over the odds), but with the benefit of knowing the price from the outset as opposed to various taxes and fees being added to the sale price later due to purchasing from an overseas vendor.
I was mostly resigned to buying from Japan before I found the one I bought though. I just made sure when looking to factor around £100 onto the asking price to cover likely import costs.
I hope you have success in finding one that meets your needs. It’s early days but I’m seeing some nice results from mine already.
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OK, thank you. I’ll keep looking but think it will probably have come from Japan. I just like the idea of a medium format rangefinder.
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