My Favourite Analogue Camera
How a point-and-shoot camera from the 90s cured my gear obsession
With the current camera offerings in the market, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the choices and spend countless hours searching for that ‘perfect’ camera.
This endless process of researching, buying and testing cameras— also known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome — is a common problem within the photography community and steals your time and attention from what matters most: producing memorable images.
While I don’t believe that creativity and artistic vision are constrained by the tools you choose, it’s indeed quite impossible to create an image without using a camera.
Going through the inevitable trial and error process has taught me there is no such thing as perfection when it comes to cameras. In the end, I settled with the Fujifilm GA645W for the vast majority of my black & white work.
But before diving into my appreciation for this camera, I will start with some backstory of the model and how it came to my hands.
The first autofocus medium format camera
Introduced by Fujifilm in 1995, the GA645 was the first medium format autofocus camera in the world.
As the name implies, it shot 6x4,5 cm images on medium format roll film, an almost three times larger negative compared to the standard 35mm rolls used at the time.
Besides the full automation, the main selling point of the camera was how compact and portable it was, considering its film size. With a rangefinder layout and collapsible lens, the camera fitted easily in a briefcase or small bag!
While autofocus became available in consumer 35mm cameras in the 1970s, medium format cameras only adopted this technology almost 20 years later.
Despite being the first, the system used on this Fuji is a deceptively simple single-point ‘hybrid’ autofocus. It used passive phase-detection for longer-distance subjects, together with active autofocus using infrared beams for close subjects. This combination resulted in a precise AF and minimum focusing distance of just 0,7 meters.
From a Leica to a plastic camera
In 2012, I was a high school student with a passion for film photography and a very limited budget for my hobby.
Since there were still plenty of affordable film cameras in the second-hand market, I bought and restored cameras to trade for better ones. Over the years, I tried almost all 35mm camera systems, from Nikon and Canon to the more premium brands as Leica and Contax.
After my first contact with a medium format camera, I was impressed by the negative size and how easy they scanned and printed compared to the regular 35mm cameras.
I was hooked.
After some consideration, I took the leap and decided to sell all my 35mm gear (which back then included a Contax G2 kit, a Contax T3 and a dedicated 35mm scanner). With the proceedings, I bought the Fuji GA645W and used the remaining cash to stock up on film and fund my travels across Europe.
From that moment, I always carried my Fuji wherever I went, and after eight years and over 200 rolls of film, I can safely say that it’s my most used camera of all time.
Portrait mode
Due to the film type and format choice, the GA645W makes portrait-oriented pictures by default, so to photograph in landscape you have to rotate it 90 degrees. Additionally, the 645 rectangles have a 4:3 aspect ratio, instead of the wider 3:2 used on traditional 35mm cameras.
This switch in orientation can be a dealbreaker to some, but since most of my images are shot on a portrait orientation, I have found this to be a quirky feature!
Over the years, I discovered that the 4:3 portrait is my favourite image format, as 3:2 images always appeared too stretched to me. I even tend to crop digital images to 4:3, so having this ratio natively in-camera feels natural to me (and avoids the need for cropping in post, seen by many as a taboo).
As a bonus, portrait images look great on mobile phones and social media since they fill a higher part of the screen than squares or landscapes!
A tool that won’t get in the way
For me, this Fuji is the perfect combination of technology, portability and convenience — as long as you are aware of its limitations, it performs the function perfectly, without being cumbersome or fiddly to use.
Since it has no screen and the battery lasts almost three years (not hours), I never get distracted by the menus or worry about running out of power when I’m out on the street.
I can focus on the moment and observe the world around me while being sure that the camera will be ready as soon as I raise it to my eye.
The auto-exposure is always ‘spot-on’, so I don’t need to carry a light meter in my pocket. Despite using a single metering cell without any fancy technologies, I get more accurate exposures with it than with a digital camera!
While the autofocus is quite slow, it’s very precise and I can count with my fingers the number of times it missed focus, probably due to user error.
The wide-angle lens is a truly stellar performer, being sharp and without distortion. The 28mm fixed lens equivalent matches my field of view perfectly, as I love to get close to my subjects and add depth to the photo.
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough” — Robert Capa
Is it the perfect camera for sports, macro or nighttime photography? No, but Fujifilm didn’t design it for those activities, the same way that a Ferrari is a terrible off-roader — it wasn’t designed for that in the first place.
Understand the constraints and scope of your photography, and get a tool that does that particular job in the best way possible. Making tradeoffs is a part of every design, and a camera that claims to do everything well is probably inadequate at something!
Closing thoughts
The Fujifilm GA645W is a quirky and specialized camera, but that’s part of the joy of film photography — you can pick a camera that fits your specific needs and creative vision.
I chose to simplify my photography and stick to a single camera for as long as possible (I also use a Rolleiflex, but that one deserves a separate story).
This camera is compact enough to carry with me everywhere, with the confidence that the results will come out great without too much thought about the technical side of photography.
This camera has been with me through the most memorable events of my life:
I carried it on my shoulder every day when I studied in Italy.
I used it for my first zine and learned darkroom printing using its detailed and contrasty negatives.
It was in my hands when I climbed the Polish mountains and saw snow for the first time in my life, on a day that was so cold that even the camera froze!
It feels weird to become attached to a chunky plastic camera from the 90s, but as long as this Fuji keeps working, I’ll be outside taking pictures instead of craving a more ‘perfect’ camera.
