Just to preface this is going to be a little shorter than my usual articles. This article is actually a slightly more in-depth version of a guide off of my Instagram account.

Okay, so here’s my excuse…

I have been having a blast shooting with my blad recently, so much so that I have been a bit obsessed with the Zeiss optics. I’ve always been a sucker for Sonnar lenses. Unlike the majority of modern lenses, Zeiss optics tend to have a classical and not too clinical look to them.

My first film camera was my Dad’s Canon AE-1 that he bought in the early nineteen eighties. He used to work at Silverstone and would often see the cars Canon sponsored and the lorry that accompanied them that was full of Canon FD bodies and lenses. At one point my Dad donated it to my uncle to use as he was and still is big into motorsport photography. I inherited the camera in 2009, the camera and accompanying lenses were all stored in a bit metal transport case, the sort with a bit foam block that you can cut sections out to fit the item snugly and securely. The camera came with three lenses, a teleconverter, and some filters. There was a small collection of square filters and a few threaded ones too. There was one filter though that really sparked my interest. It was a 49mm filter, the lenses in the kit were all 52mm and larger. It was almost impossible to see through, it had a slightly red cast. All the information on the filter was worn off apart from three characters.

I’m going to start this review on a bit of a downer but I do think it’s an important point to make. Whilst the Fujica GW690 is commonly referred to as the Texas Leica, the only Leica like attribute of this camera is the fact that it has a rangefinder. The build quality is good but it falls short in comparison to the more expensive smaller camera. I do really enjoy shooting this camera.

120 film obviously has more advantages than 135, image quality, cleaner grain and more pleasing depth of field but I have another advantage that I want to talk about today.

I will preface this article with the fact that I have owned and used an Epson V800 for the past two years. When I first bought my scanner I had just started dipping my toes into the world of large format, I was using a Fujifilm SP2000 from my work at the time to scan in all of my other negatives. Unfortunately at the start of 2020, I was made redundant from my job so my V800 became my primary way of scanning all of my negatives.