Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Fuji GA645 Professional

Fuji Photo Film · Fixed lens · 56 × 41.5 mm on 120 or 220, framed in portrait orientation when the camera is held normally; the camera senses 120 or 220 and switches over by itself. · 1995

Also known as: Fuji GA645 · Fuji GA645 Professional · Fujifilm GA645 · Fujifilm GA645 Professional · Fuji GA645 Pro · Fuji GA 645 · Fuji GA645 60mm f/4 · FUJI GA645 Professional 60mm F4 · フジ GA645 · フジ GA645 プロフェッショナル · フジフイルム GA645 · 富士フイルム GA645 Professional

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Fuji GA645 Professional, 15-frame Fuji fixed 1995 — —
Fuji GA645 Professional, 16-frame Fuji fixed — — —
  1. Weight (815 g without batteries), shutter range and the 1/400 ceiling at f/4–f/9.5, meter range, ISO range, finder construction and coverage, flash guide number, hot-shoe rating, battery life and the 120/220 switchover are camera-wiki.org's specification list for the GA645; Matt Osborne and Jen Golay repeat 815 g and the shutter figures. Japanese Wikipedia gives only the release month and the first-autofocus claim for this model; its lens data (7 elements in 6 groups, 0.7 m, 52 mm, two CR123A) is printed under the GA645i, which carries the same lens.
  2. Frame count: camera-wiki.org's text says 16 on 120 and 32 on 220, its specification list 16 or 30; Dante Stella gives 15/30 for the first cameras and 16/32 for his 'v.2' and every later model, which is the reading carried here. Osborne and Golay, writing about later cameras, count 16.
  3. Closest focus: 0.7 m from Japanese Wikipedia, camera-wiki.org, Osborne and Golay; Dante Stella gives the AF range as 0.6 m (2.3 ft) to infinity and a manual-focus scale beginning at 2.3 ft.
  4. Dimensions are Golay's own measurement (166 × 110 × 66 mm off); Anil Mistry gives roughly 16 × 11 × 6 cm for the GA645i and camera-wiki prints none.
  5. Batteries: two CR123A in the base of the grip, about 3,000 frames without flash or about 600 with the flash at half power (camera-wiki.org).
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A black, grip-handed 6×4.5 body with the finder in portrait orientation and a lens that retracts into the body when the camera is switched off; about the size of a 35mm SLR with a pancake lens (Dante Stella)
  • Single shutter release on top of the grip; the GA645i added a second release on the front for landscape framing
  • Pop-up flash in the centre of the top plate, LCD on the top plate and mode dial on the back beside the eyepiece (camera-wiki.org's model table; the GA645Zi moved the dial to the top deck and the LCD to the back)
  • Two strap lugs on one side and no PC socket; no lens-cap warning and no barcode reader
  • Lens engraved as a Super-EBC Fujinon 60mm 1:4 with a 52 mm filter thread; a camera marked GS645S has the manual-focus 60mm f/4 with a 49 mm thread and an LED match-needle meter, no autofocus
  • Early cameras: a mode wheel that turns without its unlock button being pressed, and 15 frames on 120

Fuji GA645 Professional, 15-frame:

  • Mode wheel turns freely without pressing its unlock button — camera-wiki.org's way of telling the early 15-frame cameras
  • No raised ridge around the AF button (Dante Stella)
  • Frame counter stops at 15 on 120 and 30 on 220

Fuji GA645 Professional, 16-frame:

  • Raised protective ridge around the AF button and quieter focusing (Dante Stella's 'v.2')
  • Mode wheel locked until its button is pressed
  • 16 frames on 120, 32 on 220

Specifications

Format
56 × 41.5 mm on 120 or 220, framed in portrait orientation when the camera is held normally; the camera senses 120 or 220 and switches over by itself. · 15 on 120 and 30 on 220 on early cameras; 16 and 32 on later production exposures
Finder
Three-element reverse-Galilean bright-frame finder in portrait orientation, with a moving parallax-correction frame, a central AF target cross and readouts of aperture, shutter speed, focus distance and the meter · 0.5× magnification · automatic — the bright frame moves with the focused distance parallax correction · 93% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Electronically controlled #00 leaf shutter in the lens, driven by a stepper motor · 2 s–1/700; 1/400 is the fastest speed from f/4 to f/9.5 and 1/700 only at f/11–f/22; B in manual mode; 1/30 in Program with flash · flash sync All speeds (leaf shutter); hot shoe rated 0.5 A, 400 V per camera-wiki.org; no PC socket — Dante Stella uses a Nikon AS-15 shoe adapter for a cord · self-timer
Film advance
Motorised; automatic loading from a film-start sensor; spools released by red buttons on the base; the frame counter shows an averaged count updated about every 100 frames (camera-wiki.org)
Back
Hinged; LCD on the top plate; data imprint of shutter speed, aperture and mode, or date and time, outside the picture area
Meter
Centre-weighted silicon photodiode reading through the finder window rather than the lens; EV 3–19 at ISO 100; ISO 25–1600 in 1/3 steps; ±2 EV compensation; Program, Aperture-priority and Manual
Motor drive
Not compatible — Advance is built in and motorised; there is no accessory drive
Weight
815 g
Dimensions
166 × 110 × 66 switched off with the lens retracted (Jen Golay's figures) mm
Country
Japan
Accessories
GA Strobe, the dedicated shoe flash, and GA Bracket, a grip with flash bracket and hot-shoe sync adapter (camera-wiki.org); camera-wiki's table has the bracket fitting this body and the GA645i but not the GA645Zi · 52 mm screw-in filters · Nikon F3 (non-HP) and FA/FE2/FM2 eyepiece diopters fit the finder (Dante Stella) · Nikon AS-15 shoe-to-PC adapter for an off-camera cord (Dante Stella)

93% from 3 m to infinity and 91% nearer (camera-wiki.org). Dante Stella finds a blue cast that matters little because focusing is not done through it, and reports that the eyepiece takes Nikon F3 (non-HP) and FA/FE2/FM2 diopter lenses.

Where sources disagree

Exposures
  • 15 on 120 and 30 on 220 — Dante Stella's first version; camera-wiki.org's 'very early' cameras and its specification list (16 or 30)
  • 16 on 120 and 32 on 220 — camera-wiki.org's text, Dante Stella's v.2, Osborne and Golay

Better supported: Both: 15/30 early, 16/32 later

The two counts belong to two production states rather than to a disagreement; the early cameras are told by the free-turning mode wheel.

First
  • July 1995 — Japanese Wikipedia
  • circa 1995 — camera-wiki.org; 1995 — Golay, Mike Eckman, antiquecameras.net

Better supported: 1995

Speeds (top speed at wide apertures)
  • 1/400 from f/4 to f/9.5, 1/700 at f/11–f/22 — camera-wiki.org, Osborne, Golay
  • Manual speeds to 1/500, 1/700 at f/11 or f/16 — Dante Stella

Better supported: 1/400 at f/4–f/9.5

Meter (where it reads)
  • Through the finder window, not through the lens — camera-wiki.org ('TTF'); Dante Stella ('works through the viewfinder')
  • TTL — Anil Mistry's specification table for the GA645i

Better supported: Through the finder

The lens retracts into the body and the meter must work with it closed, which fits a finder-window cell.

What reviewers say

History

The GA645 Professional of July 1995 is, in Japanese Wikipedia’s words, the first medium-format camera fitted with autofocus. Fuji had sold fixed-lens 6×4.5 cameras since the folding GS645 of 1983, all of them manual: a Copal leaf shutter, an LED match-needle meter and, on the GS645W, scale focusing. The GA645 kept the portrait-orientation 6×4.5 frame and the fixed lens — a Super-EBC Fujinon 60mm f/4 that retracts into the body when the camera is switched off — and replaced everything else with the mechanisms of a 1990s 35mm compact: hybrid active/passive autofocus with focus lock and a manual zone scale, an electronically timed #00 leaf shutter driven by a stepper motor, Program, Aperture-priority and Manual modes, a centre-weighted silicon cell reading through the finder window, motorised loading and advance with a film-start sensor, a GN 12 pop-up flash, and a data imprint of exposure or date outside the frame. Two CR123A cells in the grip run it for about 3,000 frames. camera-wiki.org records a Japan Camera Grand Prix Special Prize in 1996.

The shutter’s figures explain most of what reviewers say about it. Its range is 2 s to 1/700, but 1/700 is available only at f/11 and smaller: from f/4 to f/9.5 the ceiling is 1/400, so in bright light the camera is working near its limit at the apertures that make the f/4 lens worth having. Flash synchronises at any speed, the hot shoe is rated at 0.5 A and 400 V, and there is no PC socket, which Dante Stella bypasses with a Nikon AS-15 adapter. The bright-frame finder is a three-element reverse Galilean at 0.5× showing 93% of the frame from 3 m out, with a parallax frame that moves with the focused distance and a crosshair marking the AF target; it has a blue cast and takes Nikon F3 and FE2-type diopters. The meter, Stella finds, reads a third to half a stop under on bright daylit scenes but repeats within a tenth of a stop, and Jen Golay gave it +2 in snow.

Production changed once. The first cameras gave 15 frames on 120 and 30 on 220; later ones give 16 and 32, add a protective ridge around the AF button and focus more quietly. camera-wiki.org says the early cameras can be told by a mode wheel that turns without its unlock button being pressed. No source dates the change or counts either run. The GA645W of July 1996 put a 45mm lens in the same body, and in July 1997 the GA645i and GA645Wi added a second, front shutter release for landscape framing and a barcode reader that sets the film speed from Fuji’s 120 and 220 films, so the plain GA645 was two years in the catalogue. Mike Eckman has the whole line discontinued within a few years of 2000 as the market for expensive roll-film cameras fell away.

As a camera to use, the reviews agree on the lens and divide on the body. Matt Osborne calls the 60mm “crazy sharp” and “the sharpest 645 I have used”, and Golay finds the autofocus snappy and the camera “practically perfect in Program mode”; both call it compact and a good travel camera, and both call it noisy — the advance and the lens extension announce every frame, which rules it out for Osborne’s weddings and quiet street work. Golay’s complaints are the slow f/4, the cost of CR123A cells and a manual mode that is tedious to set; Osborne’s first body died for good, and a commenter on his review reports a camera that missed focus on more than half its frames with nobody left to repair it. Stella’s summary of the line still stands: a painless way to shoot medium format, with ergonomics “where you learn to love or hate it”. Golay paid $550 around 2017 and saw $700–900 in 2020; Osborne put used prices at about £1,000 by the time he sold his.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

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Sample photo wanted — shot with a Fuji GA645 Professional? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

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Listings updated 2026-11-02. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Fuji GA645i Professional · Fuji GA645W Professional · Fuji GA645Wi Professional · Fuji GA645Zi Professional · Fuji GS645S Professional · Fujica GS645 Professional

Lenses for this body: Super EBC Fujinon 60mm f/4 (GA645)

Sources (8)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.