Talk me out of a (or into) Fuji GA4645Wi

[cacti]

If you're reading this you probably know the issues with this camera, most notably the flex cable (which is now available and can be fixed so it won't be bricked). There are also some other issues that bubble up, I think from well-used cameras typically. There are some for sale that are absolutely mint. I'm thinking of pulling the trigger and babying it and hoping for the best.

The reason I want this and not a Mamiya or what not is the AF and portability.

 

[cgw]

Service on an almost 30yr-old camera?

 

[Don Fischer]

When I was doing film I had a couple med format cameras. I'm not well educated in all this but simply look for picture's I like. Had a Pentax 645 and a Mamiya 6x7. Went digital and gave them both to a nephew that is a pro!. Oh yea, kept a Yashika 635 but haven't got it out much after going digital. I think the thing I recall about med format was to get all you could from them the photo's had to really be blown up large. An 8x10 from my old med format's looked a whole lot like an 8x10 from my 35mm film and the med formats. I did very little printing with film but when I got my first digital I got a computer and printer at the same time. Printer did 8x10 as the largest and I went up to a 13" when it gave up the ghost. Found out I could blow up digitals farther than I though so do all my own printing today. Recently replaced my first Canon printer Pixma pro 9000XL. lasted me a long time and couldn't get a new one so went with the pro 200 and started going bigger prints. These days I'm doing a lot more 12x24" prints and found out even my origional D70 could be blown up to 12x24". Also have a Pixma iP100 and it'll do up to 8x16's for me. Finally reason has set in somewhat. The beauty of the iP100 is its so portable and the 13" one's are not!My 13" will print every thing my 8" will so the next printer will be a 17" then I can go to 16x20 plus. Everything the 13" will do and then some.

With med format film I seldom blew up photo's very much. Processing the film and enlargement were simply to costly to do. Be interesting when I get the 17" to see how much difference it will make. Wanting to try some 16x20's someday. I find it a lot easier to fix the digital files also and I'm not real good with the computer but get thru it with a simple processor, Picasa 3. Where the fault came in was thinking by getting a better camera I'd get better picture's, didn't work as I never learned to use all of any camera I ever had, including film!