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

Fuji GA645Zi Professional

Fuji Photo Film · Fixed lens · 56 × 41.5 mm on 120 or 220, framed in portrait orientation when the camera is held normally; automatic 120/220 sensing, with the pressure plate changeable while film is loaded (Dante Stella). · 1998

Known as “the Leica of Fuji 645s (Dante Stella)”

Also known as: Fuji GA645Zi · Fuji GA645Zi Professional · Fujifilm GA645Zi · Fujifilm GA645Zi Professional · Fuji GA645Zi Pro · Fuji GA645 Zi · Fuji GA-645Zi · Fuji GA645Zi 55-90mm · FUJI GA645Zi Professional 55-90mm F4.5-6.9 · Fuji GA645zi · フジ GA645Zi · フジ GA645Zi プロフェッショナル · フジフイルム GA645Zi · 富士フイルム GA645Zi Professional

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Fuji GA645Zi Professional, titanium (champagne) finish Fuji fixed 1998 — —
Fuji GA645Zi Professional, black Fuji fixed 1999 — —
  1. Lens (Super-EBC Fujinon 55–90mm f/4.5–6.9, 10 elements in 10 groups, four steps at 55, 65, 75 and 90 mm, 1.0 m closest focus, 52 mm filters, 65°–42° diagonal, f/22–38 minimum), shutter, meter, finder, flash, batteries, dimensions and weight are Japan Camera Hunter's specification. Japanese Wikipedia gives only the lens name and aperture, the April 1998 date and the two finishes; antiquecameras.net repeats 10/10, 1 m and 52 mm.
  2. Weight: 880 g without batteries in Japan Camera Hunter's specification list and 920 g with batteries in its text.
  3. Top speed: Japan Camera Hunter prints 1/700 with an asterisk and reports seeing no faster than 1/400 on his own camera, noting that sources disagree. On the 60mm cameras the 1/700 speed is available only at f/11 and smaller (camera-wiki.org), which would explain both figures.
  4. Where the meter reads: Japan Camera Hunter calls it TTL; camera-wiki.org and Dante Stella have the earlier GA645s metering through the finder window. No source read states which the Zi does.
  5. Price: Japan Camera Hunter's 'around $1,849 USD in 1999' is undocumented in the article; the B&H figure is antiquecameras.net's recollection of 2005–06 dealer pricing.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The only GA645 with a zoom: a lens marked 55–90mm that steps to 55, 65, 75 or 90 mm by a thumb lever on the back, and extends from 75 mm to 111 mm deep
  • Mode dial on the top deck (ISO, OFF, P, A, AS, M) and a backlit LCD on the back door — the earlier cameras have the dial on the back and the LCD on top
  • Pop-up flash at the upper right corner of the body rather than the centre; a PC socket; three strap lugs; a fixed eyepiece with a diopter wheel
  • One shutter release, on the front of the grip at a 50° slant — the i models have two
  • Metal bottom plate; champagne or black covers
  • Data imprint that includes the focal length and AF mode

Fuji GA645Zi Professional, titanium (champagne) finish:

  • Champagne-coloured top and bottom covers; Japanese Wikipedia calls the finish チタンカラー (titanium colour)

Fuji GA645Zi Professional, black:

  • Black covers; otherwise the same camera

Specifications

Format
56 × 41.5 mm on 120 or 220, framed in portrait orientation when the camera is held normally; automatic 120/220 sensing, with the pressure plate changeable while film is loaded (Dante Stella). · 16 on 120, 32 on 220 exposures
Finder
Bright-frame finder in portrait orientation with LCD framelines that change with the zoom step, automatic parallax correction, a distance scale and exposure readouts; fixed eyepiece with built-in diopter adjustment · 0.58× magnification · automatic parallax correction · 88% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Electronically controlled #00 leaf shutter in the lens, driven by a stepper motor · 2 s–1/700 and B (Japan Camera Hunter's specification, with 1/700 asterisked; the author saw no faster than 1/400 on his camera); half-stop aperture steps · flash sync All speeds, to 1/400 in practice (Japan Camera Hunter); hot shoe and a PC socket, the first in the line; slow-sync and no-slow-sync flash modes (Dante Stella) · self-timer
Film advance
Motorised; automatic loading with film sensing; a thumb dial takes up the slack in quarter turns (Japan Camera Hunter); lens-cap detection warning
Back
Hinged; backlit LCD status display on the back door; data imprint of exposure or date outside the picture area, with focal length and AF mode added (Dante Stella)
Meter
Centre-weighted silicon photodiode; ISO 25–1600 in 1/3 steps; ±2 EV compensation; Program, Aperture-priority, AS and Manual on a locking top-deck dial (Japan Camera Hunter: ISO, OFF, P, A, AS, M)
Motor drive
Not compatible — Advance is built in and motorised
Weight
880 g
Dimensions
165 × 111 × 75 switched off without hood; 91 deep switched on and 111 deep zoomed to 90mm (Japan Camera Hunter) mm
Country
Japan
Original price
About US$1,849 in 1999 (Japan Camera Hunter); B&H sold it at $1,399 in 2005–06, the black finish $150 more (antiquecameras.net). No Fuji list price or yen price was found (today $3,480)
Accessories
Lens hood (the camera senses whether the cap is on; Japan Camera Hunter's dimensions are given without hood) · 52 mm screw-in filters · GA Bracket does not fit this body (camera-wiki.org's table)

Japan Camera Hunter: about 88% coverage at infinity, magnification 0.4× to 0.58× across the zoom, diopter −3 to +1 with no markings. Dante Stella: LCD framelines, distance scale and readouts, fixed eyepiece with built-in correction — the earlier cameras took Nikon diopters.

Where sources disagree

Speeds (top speed)
  • 1/700 — Japan Camera Hunter's specification, asterisked
  • 1/400 — the fastest the same author saw on his camera

Better supported: 1/700, most likely at small apertures only

First
  • 1999 — Japan Camera Hunter; camera-wiki.org's 'Black (1999)'
  • Undated — Japanese Wikipedia lists チタンカラーとブラック together under the April 1998 entry

Better supported: 1999

Weight (grams)
  • 880 g without batteries — Japan Camera Hunter's specification
  • 920 g with batteries — Japan Camera Hunter's text

Better supported: 880

Meter (where it reads)
  • TTL — Japan Camera Hunter
  • Through the finder window on the earlier GA645s — camera-wiki.org, Dante Stella; no source states the Zi's arrangement

What reviewers say

History

The GA645Zi of April 1998 is the last and most altered of the five GA645 cameras, and the only one with a zoom. Its Super-EBC Fujinon 55–90mm f/4.5–6.9 — ten elements in ten groups by Japan Camera Hunter’s and antiquecameras.net’s figures — is not a continuous zoom: a thumb lever on the back steps it to 55, 65, 75 or 90 mm, the field of roughly a 34 to 56 mm lens on 35mm film, and the bright-frame finder redraws its LCD framelines for each step at 0.4× to 0.58×. Closest focus is 1.0 m, further than the fixed-lens cameras’ 0.7 m; the filter thread stays at 52 mm; the barrel grows the camera from 75 mm deep switched off to 91 mm on and 111 mm at 90 mm. Japanese Wikipedia records the lens, the date and two finishes, titanium colour and black; Japan Camera Hunter has the champagne camera in 1998 and the black in 1999, and camera-wiki.org’s colour row agrees.

Dante Stella lists what else changed, and it is most of the body. The mode dial moved from the back to the top deck, where it locks (ISO, OFF, P, A, AS, M); the LCD moved from the top plate to a backlit panel on the back door; the eyepiece became fixed, with built-in diopter correction from −3 to +1, where the earlier cameras took Nikon diopters; the flash moved to the upper right corner and gained slow-sync and no-slow-sync modes; a PC socket appeared for the first time in the line; the base plate became metal, the weather sealing better, and the camera warns when the lens cap is on. The i models’ two shutter releases went back to one, on the front of the grip at a 50° slant, and the 120/220 pressure plate can be changed with film loaded. The data imprint adds focal length and AF mode to exposure or date. The rest is the line’s: a stepper-driven #00 leaf shutter of 2 s to 1/700 — Japan Camera Hunter never saw his camera exceed 1/400, which on the 60mm cameras is the ceiling at wide apertures — a centre-weighted silicon cell, ISO 25–1600, ±2 EV, a GN 12 pop-up flash, motorised loading and advance, two CR123A cells good for about 3,000 frames, and 880 g without them. The price was about $1,849 in 1999 by Japan Camera Hunter’s account, and B&H was still selling it at $1,399 in 2005–06, the black finish $150 dearer.

Three reviewers reach three verdicts. Michael Nguyen, writing for Japan Camera Hunter, calls it “a fantastic travel and on-the-go, always-on camera” for people who “want to travel light, not think too much and have deep pockets”: the lens is “versatile and nice”, drawing “thin lines with nice contrast”, the AF is of its decade and loses frames, particularly near 1 m, and he “wouldn’t confuse it with an exhibition making tool”. Svein Olav Humberset on EMULSIVE praises the build, the grip and a lens “sharp as a tack”, but finds manual focus by LCD and shutter-speed changes by button-and-wheel so point-and-shoot that the camera becomes “a borderline digital camera in actual use”, and was nearly certain he would sell it. Stella thinks it “a much more refined camera” than its predecessors, “the Leica of Fuji 645s”, and never bonded with it because his hands had learned the older layout. Nguyen’s cautions for a buyer are specific: the ribbon cable to the rear LCD runs through the door hinge and fails, the display fades in cold, and a roll not aligned exactly on the start line may refuse to load or wind fat.

Expand Collapse

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

More sample photos elsewhere

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Sample photo wanted — shot with a Fuji GA645Zi Professional? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

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

Related: Fuji GA645 Professional · Fuji GA645i Professional · Fuji GA645W Professional · Fuji GA645Wi Professional · Fuji GS645S Professional

Lenses for this body: Super EBC Fujinon Zoom 55–90mm f/4.5–6.9 (GA645Zi)

Sources (6)

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.