Talk:Fujica G690

Disagreements and sources

There's quite a lot written about these cameras on the web, including a substantial amount that's conveniently in English or French. A lot of it is excellent, deriving either from careful direct observation or from authoritative sources. Unfortunately, some seems dodgy. I'm therefore using it with care.

Some disagreements so far:

• G690 release date: On the web I've read 1967. Nawa says (p.258) that it was presented to the general public in the March '68 Tokyo Camera Show, but he doesn't mention sales. Koyasu says (p.68) that it went on sale in December '68. There's quite a gap there; I wonder whether there could be a misprint in one date or other.
• G690 finish: I've read on the web of black bodies with black lenses and silver bodies with silver lenses. This is flatly contradicted by what Koyasu and Nawa say about the G690 and G690BL.
• BL: Both Koyasu and Nawa say that this stood for "Black and Lock". Whether "lock" is a noun or a verb, this name is of course absurd in English; but this is not a matter of English but of Japanese quasi-English naming, in which any part of English speech may be coordinated with any other. (Of course, it's imaginable that anglophone distributors were asked what "BL" stood for, couldn't bring themselves to say "Black and Lock", and invented "Breech Lock".)

Hoary 20:17, 2 June 2006 (EDT)

While "Black and Lock" would not make sense, "B for Black and L for Lock" would, in a sort of additive naming. --Rebollo fr 05:35, 3 June 2006 (EDT)

Good point. That's not quite what my sources say, but it's also not incompatible with what they say.

A further note. I may have given the impression above that I think books are more reliable than web pages or that Japanese-language sources are more reliable than English-language ones. But those aren't the points I was making. I'm using two sources (so far), one by Koyasu and the other by Nawa. (Each says a lot more than what I have so far got around to adding.) Koyasu and Nawa aren't merely two guys with publishing deals: Koyasu worked for a long time at Fuji Photo Film and submitted his MS to a publisher with very high standards. Nawa based what he wrote on interviews with people in Fuji Photo Film who were important in the development of these cameras -- these people are named, but (as is irritatingly normal in Japanese books) the readings of their names aren't given -- and he first submitted the result to Nippon Camera, a monthly magazine read by millions of middle-aged males (plus younger and older males, and women, who I think we can count as "honorary middle-aged males") who would include a fair number who'd notify the magazine or writer of any (perceived) mistakes; the article was only later anthologized in a book. So these particular Japanese-language sources seem authoritative. (Of course, that doesn't mean that I won't manage to misread them....) -- Hoary 06:01, 3 June 2006 (EDT)

Questions about the lenses

"The focussing grips on the lenses changed to rubber. A 50mm lens, a faster (f/5.5) 65mm lens, and an autoexposure 100mm f/3.5 lens were released at the same time as the GL690."

Some quick questions that came to my mind:

• Did the change in finish to rubberized rings occur on all the range, or just on the newer lenses?
• 65mm f/5.5 or f/5.6?
• What is an autoexposure lens?

--Rebollo fr 05:31, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

The change occurred to all the lenses.

Not 5.5 but 5.6, and thank you for pointing it out!

Indeed, what is an autoexposure lens? Thanks for prodding me toward explaining this in the article. Hoary 09:53, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

Flattery indeed!

The eBay dealer "onlineauctionworks" may be a fan of Camerapedia. I hope he won't mind me quoting him:

. . . One oddity for a newcomer from 35mm is the layout of controls on the lens. Moving outward from the body, the rotatable rings on the lens are first the breechlock (like that for a Canon FD lens), then focus, aperture, and finally shutter speed. The aperture ring has equally-spaced whole-stop detents, and it is easy to hold both the aperture and shutter speed rings simultaneously between thumb and forefinger in order to move quickly between such same-exposure combinations as f/11 at 1/60 and f/16 at 1/250.

The camera takes 120 film, 220 roll film, or 6.5×9cm (in Japanese 大名刺, daimeishi) sheet film. Roll or sheet is selected by a switch on the back with positions for "R" and "S"; this must be set at "S" for dry-firing. To change between 120 and 220 one turns a dial at the top of the camera and also turns over the film pressure plate (clearly marked "120" on one side, "220" on the other). . . .

Bright-eyed Sébastian Lallement draws our attention to this surprising tribute. -- Hoary 04:30, 24 February 2007 (EST)

The worst is that I noticed this, wrote to the guy asking him to replace the text by a link to Camerapedia and explaining him that it is completely moronic not extremely wise to cut and paste the description of another website because it is so easy to detect for any potential buyer. He sent me an answer saying that he would do so and I didn't check back. Now I realize that he only added the link to Camerapedia and did not remove the description. --Rebollo fr 06:15, 24 February 2007 (EST)