Texas Leica: the BIG rangefinders from Fujica!

Here you will find a table of the Fuji fixed lens 6x7cm, 6x8cm (yes, really!) and 6x9cm cameras produced over the years. If you are patient, you can find super bargains on eBay, although prices have steadily crept up in the last decade. 

Currently, I am saving pennies and dimes to get myself a nice GM670 with 100mm 3.5 lens in good working order. It will complement my Horseman Convertible 842 with its stunningly good 62mm lens. As such there aren’t any pictures shot with a Texas Leica in this article yet, but I’ll remedy that soon, I hope… 

Model Evolutions: Breech mount cameras

The early cameras had breech lock mounts and interchangeable lenses. These early cameras recently passed the 50-year mark (the G690 was introduced in 1967), so expect to spend some time finding a good one if those are the ones you are after. Allegedly there are quite a few repairpersons in Japan and Hongkong that can service them fine, but I do not know of anyone in the EU and I reckon there won’t be many in the USA either. The models with interchangeable lenses have their lenses listed in a separate table, below the camera overview table that you will find under this text.

There wasn’t much to improve on the initial design of this camera, really. Fuji got it right the first time and they stuck to it for the next 10 or so years.

The lens mount and the lenses for it never changed. As a result, all breech lock lenses fit all breech lock camera models.

Also, all lenses have 67mm (later models) or 72mm (early models) filter sizes. Yep, you read that right, huge filters! ‘Some say everything is bigger in Texas, others think the Fujica rangefinders are nearly as big as Texas itself so you best not get any ideas in their heads when trying to sell them the camera’, seems to be the general notion with the online sellers. Don’t let the images you see online fool you, in 98% of those online images there are no other size-relating items present since the sellers are scared nobody would buy those big-ass cameras from them.

Then there’s the perception of weight. The general idea is that the earlier breech mount models are more hefty than the later models, since the early cameras are made from metal and the later ones are made from plastic. WRONG. In fact, cameras from both eras are made from metal, but the later, fixed-lens models have rounded edges and their metal innards are merely covered by plastic. The only difference in weight is due to the fact that the breech mount was omitted in the fixed-lens models and that saved some weight. 

Surely the 670 models must be lighter then? WRONG AGAIN. The 6×7 and 6×9 models are so similar in dimensions, weight and operation that instruction booklets supplied with either camera were tailored to the 6×9 cameras and had values for the 6×7 model in brackets in the text. The only difference between the models really is the frame counter, the number of frames and the framelines in the viewfinder, everything else is identical. 

Expect to haul approximately 1.7 kilos around for camera and lens, whether it’s an early G690BL, a GM670 or a later GW690III.

Next Evolution: fixed lens cameras

The early 1980s saw the introduction of models with fixed lenses. The naming convention of these models is slightly confusing but at least it’s straight forward: they all have a ‘W’ in their name since their standard lens is a 90mm and that’s a bit on the wide side, but if a camera also has an ‘S’ in the name, it is the super wide version.

The GW690 and GSW690 cameras were produced in three versions (models I, II and III). The GW670 Camera had two versions (models II and III). The lenses on the GW670II, GW670III, GW690, GW690II and GW690III are identical – the Fujinon 90mm F 3.5. All of the GSW models have the same Fujinon 65mm F5.6 lens.

In the fixed-lens models, lenses all are labeled EBC. Price differences between versions are small, as most of the changes over time were cosmetic and ergonomic improvements – not optical performance. The last versions always sell for more, but most users of the second version camera are very pleased with the results their cameras get them. These camera provide very high quality for good value.

The GSW (“Super Wide”) camera has a secondary benefit, it can be used for quality, panoramic photography. Since this camera provides a semi-wide angle view on a 56 x 82.6mm negative, it is possible to crop the negative in half along the height, for a 27.5mm by 82.6mm negative, which is a 3:1 ratio.

Why would you do this? The negative is 27.5mm in height which is actually 10% more negative than the 22.5mm height of an Hasselblad X-Pan camera. Blowing up this negative 8X provides an impressive 20cm x 60cm print of very good quality! With this camera you get a built-in terrific panoramic option for free, aside from having a great wide angle camera on a 6x9cm piece of film.