Bronica GS-1
With the introduction of the GS-1 in 1983, Bronica expanded its medium format camera lineup so that it included not just 6x4.5 and 6x6 formats, but also the very popular 6x7 format. Long desired by studio and portrait photographers, the 6x7 format allows for greater detail information retention when enlarging to 8x10”. In keeping with its previous offerings of the ETRS and the SQ, Bronica designed the GS-1 to be completely modular when it comes to lenses, finders, and film backs.
Bronica’s lens designs centered around an electronic #0 Seiko shutter. While this decision gave the lens designers a standard shutter to use and made building and servicing the lenses more economical, it limited the maximum aperture for all of the lenses. Whereas competitor’s standard lenses routinely had maximum apertures of f/2.8, Bronica’s fastest apertures were f/3.5 on a few lenses and more often were f/4.0. Where the Bronica PG lenses excelled, however, was in their minimum focusing distance. Even lenses with focal lengths of 110mm had focusing distances of less than 1 meter.
For the GS-1, Bronica designed a series of film backs that included 6x7, 6x6, 6x4.5, a standard 35mm film back, and a panoramic 35mm film back. With the combination of lens focal lengths from 50mm to 500mm and film backs from 35mm to 6x7, there’s almost no shooting style that can’t be achieved with a complete GS-1 system
Despite being in production from 1983 to 2002, there were only about 22,500 camera bodies produced, so it’s understandable that they are a rare sight out in the world. The upside is that they were likely used primarily in the studio, so even older versions should be in reasonable shape. The downside is that there are few technicians willing to repair them and the parts market is not very robust.
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