Let’s talk about camera again.
In 1986, FUJIFILM released the GX680 Professional.
As the naming of “Professional” indicates, it is a medium format film camera that was developed for the professionals, especially those specialized in creating their works in studio.
The main characteristics of the GX680 are the two following points.
1. The revolving mechanism that can be shifted right, left, up and down.
2. It was a first medium format camera to have the Tilt/Shift mechanism.
Both are mechanism that professionals had strongly demanded, but the burden for the lens design for such camera was immense.
GX680 uses 6x8cm film, but as it featured revolving mechanism, the image circle had to cover 8x8cm, which meant that the lens had to cover 8x the area of 135 format.
On top of that, the camera also featured TILT/Shift mechanism. The 8x8cm image circle had to be maintained even when TILT/Shift-ed.
Only a special kind of lens could complete this system.
If a camera maker had come up with such system, then majority of the lens maker would show no support for this kind of camera.
And we would probably never see this kind of system ever available.
But FUJIFILM was a photo maker. We were well aware of the potential that the medium format film had. At the same time, we also had the resource to create both the camera and the lens.
As a result, we had developed 13 GX mount lenses, and gained huge following in the Studio photography.
What are the essential needs upon photography?
We search for the answer and build the optimal and best system from scratch. We are not dependent of any existing system nor any concept. This is exactly what we did again in the 2010’s with the X mount.
Continue to read episode 7:
Episode 7 -Rebirth of the large format-
