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

Fujica ST801

Fuji · Fujica ST mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1972

single source, unconfirmed via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: ST-801 · ST 801 · ST801 · Fuji ST801 · フジカ ST801 · フジカST801 · FUJICA ST-801

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
ST801 Fujica ST 1972–1978 — No figure published
  1. Fujifilm's history dates the ST801 to September 1972, home and export together; the English Wikipedia table and the Vintage Technology Archive both list 1973. The maker's date is adopted. camera-wiki and Mike Eckman end production in 1978, the year before the X bayonet.
  2. Body weight is published four ways: 585g in two Japanese owner accounts (the same figure as the ST701 manual, which may be its origin), about 635g in the contemporary Fujica Book, 638g weighed by Mike Eckman, 640g in the Wikipedia table. 640g is adopted as the round figure nearest the two heavier independent sources, and the dispute is recorded.
  3. The 51,000-yen Japanese price with the 55mm f/1.8 rests on one Japanese blog and is the single-source flag on this page. The $440 US figure with the f/1.4 EBC lens is Eckman's from period advertising, and CamerAgX's "about 25% above a Spotmatic F" is consistent with it.
  4. The Vintage Technology Archive page for the ST801 gives a vertical shutter, 1/125 sync, CdS cells, a PX625 mercury cell and an X bayonet mount. All of that is wrong — the contemporary Fujica Book, the manual and every hands-on account describe a cloth horizontal shutter, 1/60 sync, silicon cells, a 6V cell and an M42 thread — and it is not used here.
  5. The ST801's full-aperture metering needs the Fujinon lens tab: any M42 lens mounts and meters stopped down through the locked depth-of-field button, but only Fujinon and EBC Fujinon lenses with the tab and lock-pin recess meter wide open. Bob Janes records that the Fujica lock pin fouls some other M42 bodies, so previous owners sometimes filed it off Fujinon lenses; the Fujinon tab likewise stops the lens screwing home on some other bodies and adapters. A Rangefinderforum member reports that Olympus FTL M42 lenses will not mount on the open-aperture Fujicas without their own coupling pin removed.
  6. Stuart Jenkins measured the stop-down pusher bar on the Fujicas at 8.0mm from the flange and found five of twelve automatic M42 lenses start closing their aperture with the pin beyond that, so they sit partly stopped down on any Fujica body; his fix was to grind 1.5mm from the mirror-box baseplate.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Meter switched on by first pressure on the shutter release, which can be locked; the depth-of-field button beside the lens locks down for stop-down metering
  • Round eyepiece (the ST605 and ST705 have rectangular ones)
  • Hot shoe on the prism plus X and FP sockets on the front

ST801:

  • Seven red LEDs down the right of the screen in place of a needle; the centre diamond lights for correct exposure
  • 1/2000 on the shutter speed dial, the fastest of any M42 body
  • A lens lock release button beside the mount and a coupling ring around the flange for the Fujinon aperture tab
  • A single 6V battery (PX28 / 4SR44) behind a coin-slot cover on the top plate, loaded negative end outward

Serial-range notes

early bodies, to about 1974
Chrome embossed Fujica logo on the prism front. Mike Eckman's observation; no serial break published.
later bodies, from about 1974
Logo paint-filled in black or white, matching the ST901. Mike Eckman's observation.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, split-image spot with microprism collar on a fine-ground screen without fresnel rings; seven LEDs at the right showing about three stops either way. Reviewers call it the brightest finder on any M42 body. · no rangefinder image
Shutter
horizontal-travel cloth focal plane, mechanical · B, 1s – 1/2000 · flash sync X at 1/60 and slower; hot shoe and X socket; FP socket for focal-plane bulbs · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever with a hinged plastic tip
Back
hinged
Meter
TTL average reading at full aperture with coupled Fujinon lenses, or stopped down with any M42 lens; two silicon photocells beside the eyepiece; seven-LED display; ASA 25–3200, EV 1–19 at ASA 100 with an f/1.4 lens. One 6V silver-oxide or alkaline cell (PX28, 4SR44 / 4LR44) powers the meter only; the shutter is mechanical at every speed.
Weight
640 g
Dimensions
133 × 91 × 88 (W × H × D) with the 55mm f/1.8, from the Fujica Book and Japanese owner accounts mm
Country
Japan
Original price
$440 with the EBC Fujinon 55mm f/1.4 in 1972 (Mike Eckman, from period advertising); 51,000 yen with the 55mm f/1.8 in Japan according to one Japanese blog (today $3,300)
Accessories
EBC Fujinon lenses with the aperture tab and lock-pin recess · Right-angle finder, eye cup and eyesight-correction lenses · Extension tubes, bellows, reverse adapter, microscope adapter

Where sources disagree

First
  • September 1972 — Fujifilm corporate history; camera-wiki and Mike Eckman also write 1972
  • 1973 — English Wikipedia's Fujica table; Vintage Technology Archive

Better supported: 1972

Weight (grams)
  • 585g body only — enutana.com and the nico-came blog
  • about 635g body only — the Fujica Book (Focal Press, late 1970s), OCR of the digit uncertain
  • 638g — Mike Eckman, weighing a body
  • 640g — English Wikipedia's Fujica table

Better supported: about 640g

No maker's figure was found in a source that could be read. The 585g figure matches the ST701 manual exactly and is suspected of being copied from it.

What reviewers say

History

The ST801 of September 1972 is the camera that made the Fujica M42 bodies a system of their own. The ST701 two years earlier had metered stopped down through any 42mm lens; the ST801 meters at full aperture, and to do that Fuji cut a small tab into the aperture ring of its Fujinon lenses that engages a follower ring around the body’s flange, and added a spring pin that locks the lens at the end of its last turn, released by a button beside the mount. Any M42 lens still screws on and meters stopped down through the locked depth-of-field button; only a Fujinon or EBC Fujinon with the tab and the pin recess meters wide open. Alongside that Fuji put seven red light-emitting diodes down the right of the screen where every other SLR had a needle — the company’s history calls it a world first, and camera-wiki records it as the first viewfinder LED display in a 35mm SLR — and a cloth shutter that reached 1/2000, which no other M42 camera did.

The rest of the specification is a mechanical camera of the period done well. The shutter runs from 1 second to 1/2000 with B, synchronises electronic flash at 1/60 through a hot shoe or an X socket, and needs no battery; a single 6V cell, a PX28 or 4SR44, behind a coin-slot cover on the top plate runs the meter alone. Two silicon cells beside the eyepiece read an average of the screen from EV 1 to EV 19 at ASA 100 with an f/1.4 lens, over a film-speed range of 25 to 3200. The finder has a split-image spot in a microprism collar on a fine-ground screen with no fresnel rings, and reviewers call it the brightest of any M42 body. With the 55mm f/1.8 it measures 133 × 91 × 88mm; body weight is quoted from 585g to 640g depending on who is weighing, and the disagreement is recorded rather than resolved. In the United States it listed at $440 with the f/1.4 EBC lens, about a quarter more than a Pentax Spotmatic F.

Fuji did not revise the camera in its six years. Mike Eckman notes that bodies from about 1974 carry a paint-filled logo on the prism in the ST901 style, where the early ones have an embossed chrome one, and there are chrome and black finishes; nothing else changed before production ended in 1978, a year before the X bayonet replaced the whole line. Fuji’s own history says the ST801 became its main SLR, and fourteen lenses were listed for it at launch.

Buying one, the lens question comes first. The body accepts any M42 lens, but the coupling has consequences in both directions: the Fujica lock pin fouls some other makers’ M42 bodies, so previous owners have filed it off Fujinon lenses, and the Fujinon tab stops those lenses screwing fully home on other bodies and on plain adapters. Olympus FTL lenses, which have their own coupling pin, will not mount on the open-aperture Fujicas without it removed. And Stuart Jenkins found a clearance issue on the body side: the Fujica stop-down pusher bar sits 8.0mm from the flange, and five of the twelve automatic M42 lenses he measured begin closing their diaphragm before the pin gets that far, so they mount partly stopped down on any Fujica. The 6V cell is still made, which spares the ST801 the mercury problem of the ST701, and the shutter works without it. Foam seals will be gone, and one Japanese owner warns that the teeth on the take-up spool are fragile.

No production total has been published.

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 ST801
Fujica ST801, shown at P&E China 2016 — Morio, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $140 across 33 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-20 (middle half $87–$160). First day tracked.

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

Show 55 more 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 2026-09-20. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Fujica ST701 · Fujica ST901 · Fujica ST605 / 605N / 605 II · Fujica ST705 / 705W · Fujica AZ-1

Lenses for this body: EBC Fujinon 24mm f/2.8 · Fujinon 28mm f/3.5 · Fujinon 35mm f/2.8 · EBC Fujinon 35mm f/1.9 · EBC Fujinon Macro 55mm f/3.5 · EBC Fujinon 50mm f/1.4 · Fujinon 55mm f/1.8 · EBC Fujinon-T 100mm f/2.8 · EBC Fujinon-T 135mm f/2.5 · EBC Fujinon-T 135mm f/3.5 · EBC Fujinon-T 200mm f/4.5

Sources (14)

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.