Fujinon 50mm f/5.6 (G690)

Fuji Photo Film · Fuji G690 · 1974

Also known as: Fujinon 50mm f/5.6 · Fujinon 50mm F5.6 · Fujinon SW S 50mm F5.6 · Fujinon SWS 50mm F5.6 · Fuji Fujinon SW S 50/5.6 · Fujica 50mm f/5.6 G690 · Fujinon 50mm f/5.6 GL690 · フジノン 50mm F5.6 · フジノン SW S 50mm F5.6 · フジカ G690 50mm

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Fujinon SW S 50mm f/5.6 (1974–78)	Fuji G690	1974–1978	—	—

Elements and groups (8/6), f/32, 1m closest focus and 595 g are camera-wiki's lens table; Japanese Wikipedia's product list agrees on 6群8枚, 1m and 1974. Mike Eckman's specification box also gives 8 elements in 6 groups. No source gives the length or diameter.
The 1978 end date is the end of the GL690/GM670 (Lallement: November 1978); no separate discontinuation for the lens was published.
No list price was found in any source.

How to tell them apart (expand)

72mm filter thread and screw-in hood, shared with the whole line; Seiko No. 0 shutter with B and 1–1/500 on the lens
Breech-lock G mount; the lens fits the G690 and G690BL as well as the two 1974 bodies, but needs its accessory finder on all of them
camera-wiki reports that Fuji also made a few dozen of the same optical design for view-camera lensboards, so a shutter-mounted Fujinon 50mm f/5.6 without the G bayonet is one of those, not this lens

Fujinon SW S 50mm f/5.6 (1974–78):

Black barrel with the textured rubber focusing-ring insert of the 1974 generation; no ribbed-ring version exists, the lens having arrived with the GL690 (camera-wiki; Lallement)
Engraved as a Fujinon SW S (Lallement's photograph of 'Fujinon SW S f:5.6/50mm with finder'; Eckman's specification box)
Sold with its own shoe finder, a reflected-frameline type of 0.39× (camera-wiki), since the body finder has no 50mm frame
Scales in metres and feet, infinity at the anticlockwise end, as on every lens of the line (camera-wiki)

Fujinon SW S 50mm f/5.6 (1974–78): The only version. Introduced with the GL690 and GM670 as the widest lens of the system (camera-wiki; Lallement). Lallement counts it with the AE 100mm as the most desirable of the lenses and now hard to find.

Specifications

Construction: 8 elements / 6 groups
Aperture range: f/5.6–f/32
Shutter: Seiko No. 0 leaf shutter in the lens, B, 1–1/500 s; M and X sync
Min. focus: 1 m
Weight: 595 g
Filter: 72 mm
Years manufactured: 1974–1978
Country: Japan

What reviewers say

Mike Eckman, mikeeckman.com (blog) — Shot on a GL690: very sharp results he set beside modern digital; the complaints are the parallax framing errors of the accessory finder and the camera's conspicuousness.

History

The 50mm f/5.6 is the widest lens Fuji made for its 6×9 rangefinders and one of the three that arrived with the GL690 and GM670 in 1973–74, alongside the 65mm f/5.6 and the AE 100mm. On 6×9 it covers more than 90° (Lallement), the view of a 21mm on 35mm film; on the GM670’s 6×7 gate rather less. It is an eight-element design in six groups, stops down to f/32, focuses to 1m and weighs 595 g (camera-wiki; Japanese Wikipedia), with the 72mm filter thread and Seiko No. 0 shutter of every lens in the line. Because the body finder carries frames only for the 100mm and 150mm, the lens came with a reflected-frameline shoe finder of 0.39×; the rangefinder still focuses it.

It was built only in the 1974 style, with a black barrel and a textured rubber insert on the focusing ring, and is engraved Fujinon SW S. camera-wiki records that the lens was highly regarded and that Fuji made a few dozen of the same design mounted for view-camera lensboards. Mike Eckman, using one on a GL690, found the results very sharp, to the point of comparing them with modern digital, and his only complaints were the parallax errors of the shoe finder and how conspicuous the outfit is. Lallement counts it with the AE 100mm as the most desirable lens of the system and the hardest to find, which follows from Fuji’s own discovery that only the 65mm and 100mm sold in numbers.

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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

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Fujinon 50mm f/5.6 (G690)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

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