Fujica GS675; a brief moment

Despite telling myself that I won't buy another camera until 2024, I did nonetheless.. The Fujica GS645 has been on my wishlist for several years now since it ticks off several boxes for me.

1. It's foldable design makes it pretty small to carry around and at 830g it's not too heavy either. Both strap lugs are located on the right-hand side allowing it to comfortably hang on your side.

2. Portrait orientation is the default for this camera when you raise it to your eye due to the way the film runs through the camera. A great feature if like me most of your images are portraits!

3. The 4x3 aspect ratio is possibly my favorite after shooting with the Fuji GFX50s for a year. It's a very natural frame for portraits and environmental documentation. The 2x3 ratio found in Full-Frame and 35mm cameras feels too panoramatic for me at this point. It might also be an influence of getting used to seeing so many 4x5 ratio images on Instagram since we're no longer restrained to 6x6 on the platform.

4. The lens is a EBC Fujinon S 75mm f/3.4, roughly equivalent to 45mm (a x0.62 crop factor), with DoF equivalent of f/2. This is ideal for portraits, though can be a bit tight for indoors work (foreshadowing me buying the GS645s (eq. 35mm) or GS645w (eq. 28mm) in the future I'm sure.. )

Ilford Kentmere 100; T-Max 1:4 developer, 5.5min, 20C

Now to the unfortunate ugly business. I bought it off Ebay from Japan under the title "CLA'D New Bellows [N MINT w/Strap] [...]" well guess who developed a shutter issue just after the 1st roll of film?.. Yup, this particular one.. I've heard some photographers say that the camera is prone to developing a sticky shutter in cold weather, but I've been unable to find any mention of it on old forums. The large plethora of winter images shot with it also seem to go against that.

Frankly, I was hoping to take this camera with me to Korea next February, but if the rumors about the sticky shutter were true, it would make the camera unusable there (and for half the year as well for that matter).