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

Fujica AX-1

Fuji · Fujica X mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back, interchangeable with the Fujica Photo Recorder data back · 1979

single source, unconfirmed via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: AX1 · AX 1 · Fujica AX1 · FUJICA AX-1 · フジカ AX-1 · フジカAX-1 · Porst CR-3

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
AX-1 Fujica X 1979 — No figure published
  1. Dates come from Fujifilm's own corporate history: the STX-1 went on export sale in August 1979 with a bayonet mount, the AX-1 and AX-5 followed for export in September 1979 and the AX-3 in December, and Japanese sales of the AX-1 and the others began in March 1980, at which point screw-mount production stopped. The Japanese Wikipedia product list and the awane-camera museum page give the same March 1980 domestic date. Camera-wiki's "1980" is the domestic date.
  2. The metering range is the one specification the sources disagree on. The instruction manual on butkus.org gives EV 0–19 at ISO 100 (f/1.4 at 2 seconds to f/22 at 1/1000) for all three AX bodies; camera-wiki and English Wikipedia give EV 2–18 for the AX-1. The manual's f/1.4 at 2 seconds is odd for a camera whose longest speed is 1/2 second, and the same text appears verbatim in the AX-3 and AX-5 manuals, so the manual figure may simply have been copied across. Recorded as disputed.
  3. No original list price was found in any source that could be read, in yen or in dollars. Fujifilm's history page carries no prices, the Japanese museum pages leave the price field empty, and the American brochure at pacificrimcamera.com could not be read.
  4. The capacitor fault is reported for the AX-1 and AX-3 in forum threads and a repair video rather than in any published review: an electrolytic capacitor under the base plate dries out and the shutter refuses to release or fires on its own. Recorded in the prose as a buying check; the component value and the claim that later AX-3 bodies used a tantalum capacitor come from a search excerpt of a Classic Camera Repair Forum thread that could not be fetched directly, and are single-source.
  5. The 430g body weight given by expert-photo.fr is not adopted; the manual says 500g body only and 645g with the 55mm f/2.2, and camera-wiki agrees with the manual.
  6. Both reviews are in French and were read through machine translation.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Fujica X bayonet: 65° turn, 43.5mm flange back; will not take an M42 Fujinon without the Mount Adapter X-S
  • No shutter at all without a 6V battery: the release is electromagnetic and every speed is timed electronically
  • Body 135 × 84 × 48.5mm and 500g, the shallowest of the three AX bodies

AX-1:

  • Shutter speed selector carries only AE, 60, B and OFF; no manual speeds at all
  • AX-1 on the front of the prism housing; the selector also serves as the power switch
  • LED shutter-speed readout in the finder and no aperture window, where the AX-3 and AX-5 show the aperture

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back, interchangeable with the Fujica Photo Recorder data back
Finder
Fixed silvered pentaprism, three-way screen (split image, microprism, ground glass); LED shutter-speed indication, over/under warning and battery check, read by pressing the release halfway. · 0.98× magnification · 92% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
horizontal cloth focal plane, electronically controlled throughout, electromagnetic two-step release · 1/2 – 1/1000 stepless in automatic (1/4-step digital control); manual 1/60 and B only · flash sync 1/60 at the hot shoe; automatic shutter-speed setting with the dedicated Auto Strobe AZ and 300X · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever, 144° throw, 25° stand-off; several short strokes allowed
Back
hinged, opens with the rewind crank; removable for the Fujica Photo Recorder data back
Meter
TTL centre-weighted averaging, silicon photocells, aperture-priority automatic through a three-magnet electronic control; EV 0–19 at ISO 100 by the manual (EV 2–18 in camera-wiki and Wikipedia), ISO 12–3200 in 1/3 steps, AE lock by holding the release halfway, one stop of compensation. Runs from one 6V silver-oxide (4SR44 / PX28 / JIS 4G13) or alkaline (4LR44) cell that also fires the shutter.
Motor drive
Fujica Auto Winder X — 2 frames a second, four AA cells, single or continuous, on the same winder as the AX-3 and AX-5.
Weight
500 g
Dimensions
135 × 84 × 48.5 (W × H × D), body only, from the instruction manual mm
Country
Japan
Accessories
Fujica Auto Winder X · Fujica Auto Strobe AZ and Auto Strobe 300X · Fujica Photo Recorder data back · Fujica Mount Adapter X-S (M42 Fujinon lenses, with automatic exposure) · Fujica Auto Extension Tubes X25 and X50, Auto Bellows X

Where sources disagree

Meter
  • EV 0–19 at ISO 100 — the Fujica AX-1 instruction manual (butkus.org), which gives the same range for the AX-3 and AX-5
  • EV 2–18 at ISO 100 — camera-wiki and English Wikipedia's Fujica model table

The manual is the maker's, but its example (f/1.4 at 2 seconds) describes a camera with a 2-second slowest speed, which the AX-1 is not; the block of text is shared with the AX-3 and AX-5 manuals. Left unresolved.

What reviewers say

History

The AX-1 is the bottom of the three-body range with which Fuji left the M42 thread behind. Fujifilm’s own history puts the sequence plainly: the STX-1 went on export sale in August 1979 as the first Fujica with a bayonet mount, the AX-1 and AX-5 followed for export in September, the AX-3 in December, Japanese sales began in March 1980, and production of the screw-mount cameras stopped. The new mount, the Fujica X, is a 65-degree bayonet with a 43.5mm flange distance, and the company described the AX-1 as the aperture-priority body a beginner could master.

It is aperture-priority and very little else. The shutter speed selector has four positions, AE, 60, B and OFF, and doubles as the power switch; in AE the camera picks any speed from 1/2 to 1/1000 second under electronic control, and the only manual speed is 1/60, which is also the flash speed. Metering is centre-weighted through silicon photocells, ISO 12 to 3200, with an AE lock by holding the release halfway and one stop of compensation. The finder is a 0.98× pentaprism with 92 per cent coverage and a column of LEDs for the shutter speed; unlike its two siblings it has no aperture window. The body is 135 × 84 × 48.5mm and 500g, the slimmest of the three, and takes the same Auto Winder X at two frames a second, the same Auto Strobe flashes and the same Photo Recorder data back.

Nothing works without the battery. The release is a two-step electromagnetic switch and every speed is timed by the electronics, so a dead 6V cell — a PX28 or 4SR44 silver-oxide, or a 4LR44 alkaline — means no exposure at all, and a camera that fires with a fresh cell is the first thing to confirm. The second is the fault the AX bodies are known for: an electrolytic capacitor under the base plate dries out with age, after which the shutter will not release, or releases by itself when the camera is switched on. Repairers describe the part and the fix, and the same fault is reported on the AX-3. Beyond that the checks are the usual ones for a 1980 camera with plastic top covers: mirror-damper foam, light seals, a film window that grows mould, and a meter that may have drifted.

Identifying one is easy — the four-position selector and the AX-1 badge on the prism housing — and the only other name it wore was Porst’s CR-3 Automatic in Germany. No production figure or list price was found for it, in yen or in dollars, and the line as a whole was gone by the mid-1980s: English Wikipedia ends the Fujica SLRs in 1985, and the Japanese product list records that sales never took off and that Fuji left own-brand 35mm SLRs when the series stopped.

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.

Photographs

Fujica AX-1
Fujica AX-1 with lens — Uberprutser, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Fujica AX-1
Fujica AX-1 with its box — Uberprutser, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $90 across 30 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-20 (middle half $46–$120). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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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 2026-09-20. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Fujica AX-3 · Fujica AX-5 · Fujica STX-1 / STX-1N · Fuji STX-2 · Fujica AZ-1

Lenses for this body: Fujinon 55mm f/2.2 · X-Fujinon 50mm f/1.2 DM · X-Fujinon 50mm f/1.6 · X-Fujinon 50mm f/1.9

Sources (13)

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.