EBC Fujinon GX M SF 190mm f/8 (soft focus)
Fuji Photo Film · Fuji GX680 · 1988
single source, unconfirmedAlso known as: EBC Fujinon GX SF 190mm f/8 · EBC Fujinon GX M SF 190mm f/8 · Fujinon GX M SF 190mm F8 · Fujinon GX SF 190mm F8 soft focus · Fuji GX680 190mm f8 SF · Fujifilm GX680 190mm F8 soft focus · EBC FUJINON GX M SF 190mm 1:8 · Fujinon SF 190/8 · フジノン GX SF 190mm F8 · フジノン GX M SF 190mm F8 · フジ GX680 190mm F8 ソフトフォーカス · EBC フジノン GX SF 190mm 軟焦点
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EBC Fujinon GX SF 190mm f/8 (1988–1997) | Fuji GX680 | 1988–1997 | — | — |
| EBC Fujinon GX M SF 190mm f/8 (1997–2011) | Fuji GX680 | 1997–2011 | — | — |
- Launch year: 1988 comes from the table of soft-focus lenses on English Wikipedia alone, which cites a 1989 Popular Photography item on Fuji's announcement of the lens; neither the Fuji GX680 article nor Japanese Wikipedia dates it. The page carries the single-source flag for that reason. The variant split at 1997 follows English Wikipedia's statement that the GX M lenses arrived with the GX680III, which Japanese Wikipedia dates to December 1997 and English Wikipedia to 1998.
- Optical construction (3 elements in 3 groups), closest focus (1.52 m), the 82 mm filter and the description 軟焦点レンズ (soft-focus lens) are from Japanese Wikipedia's Fujifilm product list; English Wikipedia's GX680 table, drawn from Fujifilm's Japanese lens page, gives the same construction, f/8–64, 101 × 107 × 104 mm, 690 g, an 87 mm f/3.7 equivalent on 35 mm film and a list price of ¥156,000, and the soft-focus table repeats the figures. The dimensions are width × height × length of the lens on its board, so no diameter is given.
- How the softness is made: the GX680 article says only 'unique aperture design for soft focus effect'. Wikipedia's soft-focus table files the lens under method CS, 'conventional + sieve aperture': a lens left undercorrected for spherical aberration at full aperture, with a fixed internal sieve (a perforated annulus) setting the balance between the corrected centre and the undercorrected edge, and an ordinary iris that trims the softness by cutting the edge rays. The same table's Popular Photography citation calls the lens Imagon-inspired, the Rodenstock Imagon being the sieve-disc soft-focus lens of the view-camera world. No Fuji document describing the mechanism was found.
- Price: ¥156,000 is the list price on Fujifilm's lens page as recorded by Wikipedia, with no year attached. Fujifilm's page listed the GX M lenses, so the price belongs to the GX M years (1997–2011); 1997 is used as the price year for that reason.
- End date: Fujifilm's list of discontinued interchangeable lenses gives 2011年3月出荷終了 (shipments ended March 2011) for the GX M SF 190mm 1:8, as does Wikipedia's soft-focus table, which cites Fujifilm's page for the lens.
- Shutter: English Wikipedia says the shutter in every GX680 lens is electronic and made by Seiko, 8 s to 1/400 plus B, flash synchronisation at all speeds. No source gives a blade count for the iris.
How to tell them apart
- The SF in the name: EBC FUJINON GX SF 190mm 1:8 or GX M SF 190mm 1:8 on the front ring, the only soft-focus lens and the only 190 mm in the GX680 line (Wikipedia)
- A lens on a rectangular GX680 lens board with the GX bayonet, an electronic Seiko leaf shutter inside and no focusing ring: the body's bellows does the focusing. The Fujinon SF soft-focus lenses in Copal shutters with focusing scales are view-camera lenses, not this one
- 82 mm filter thread, the standard size across the GX680 line; 690 g on its board (Wikipedia)
EBC Fujinon GX SF 190mm f/8 (1988–1997):
- Front ring reads EBC FUJINON GX SF 190mm 1:8 with no M; no exposure-counter chip, so a GX680III shows no shot count for it (Wikipedia)
EBC Fujinon GX M SF 190mm f/8 (1997–2011):
- Front ring reads EBC FUJINON GX M SF 190mm 1:8; the M marks the electronic exposure counter read by the GX680III (Wikipedia)
- EBC Fujinon GX SF 190mm f/8 (1988–1997): The first marking. Wikipedia's table of soft-focus lenses dates the lens to 1988 and cites a 1989 Popular Photography report that Fuji had announced an Imagon-inspired 190mm f/8 soft-focus lens for the GX680; the end year is the December 1997 arrival of the GX M marking on the GX680III. Optically the same lens as the GX M SF.
- EBC Fujinon GX M SF 190mm f/8 (1997–2011): Introduced with the GX680III of December 1997 and shipped until March 2011 by Fujifilm's own list of discontinued lenses, which names it 'GX M SF 190mm 1:8'. It mounts on the GX680 and GX680II as well, where the counter is simply not shown.
Specifications
- Formula
- Three-element soft-focus lens, undercorrected for spherical aberration, with a fixed sieve aperture and a conventional iris (Wikipedia's classification; no Fuji layout found)
- Construction
- 3 elements / 3 groups
- Aperture range
- f/8–f/64
- Shutter
- Seiko electronic leaf shutter in the lens, 8 s–1/400, B; flash sync at every speed (Wikipedia)
- Min. focus
- 1.52 m
- Dimensions
- 104 mm long
- Weight
- 690 g
- Filter
- 82 mm
- Years manufactured
- 1988–2011
- Country
- Japan
- Coating
- EBC multicoating, Fuji's Electron Beam Coating, as the name prefix states
- Original price
- ¥156,000 list (Fujifilm's lens page as recorded by Wikipedia; year not stated, GX M years 1997–2011) (today ¥173,000)
What reviewers say
No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.
History
The SF 190mm f/8 is the soft-focus lens of Fuji’s GX680 system, the portrait lens in a line otherwise built for the studio table. Fujifilm’s figures, as carried by the Wikipedia tables, are 3 elements in 3 groups, f/8 to f/64, closest focus at 1.52 m, the line’s standard 82 mm filter thread, 101 × 107 × 104 mm on its board and 690 g, which English Wikipedia renders as an 87 mm f/3.7 equivalent on 35 mm film. The shutter is the electronic Seiko leaf shutter common to the line, 8 s to 1/400 plus B with flash synchronisation at every speed, and there is no focusing ring: the body’s bellows focuses it.
How it softens is only sketched. The GX680 article speaks of a ‘unique aperture design for soft focus effect’; Wikipedia’s table of soft-focus lenses files it as a conventional-plus-sieve design, a lens left undercorrected for spherical aberration with a fixed perforated ring inside setting how much the soft edge rays contribute and an ordinary iris trimming them away as it closes, and its Popular Photography citation of 1989 reports Fuji announcing an Imagon-inspired 190mm f/8 for the GX680. That is the Rodenstock Imagon’s principle, the sieve-disc soft-focus lens of the view-camera world, built into a GX680 lens board with its electronic shutter. No Fuji document describing the mechanism or printing a layout was found, so the softness as a function of aperture is not documented here.
The soft-focus table dates it to 1988, two years into the GX680’s life, and like the other lenses of the line it was sold in two markings: the plain GX SF for the GX680 and GX680II, and the GX M SF from the GX680III of December 1997, whose electronic exposure counter lets the III show how many frames have gone through the lens. Either marking works on any of the bodies; only the counter is lost. Fujifilm’s list of discontinued lenses ends its shipments in March 2011, and the list price on Fujifilm’s lens page, ¥156,000, is recorded by Wikipedia without a year. No review, test or user account of the lens was found; Danny Burk’s 2002 system review, the one substantial English account of the GX680 lenses, did not include it, and a search in Japanese turned up only dealers.
When buying, test the shutter on a body, because it is electronic and fires only with the camera’s power, and look through the lens at the sieve ring for damage or haze, since a three-element lens hides nothing. Read the front ring for the M if the counter on a GX680III matters. Left open: a second source for the 1988 date, Fuji’s own description of the sieve and the softness at each stop, the blade count, a dated price list, and any first-hand account of how it draws.
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 EBC Fujinon GX M SF 190mm f/8 (soft focus)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).
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