Fuji GX617
Introduced in 1993, the Fuji GX617 replaced Fuji's earlier G617 panoramic camera. The major innovation of the GX617 is the ability to change lenses. Fuji made a total of four lenses for the GX617: a wide angle 90mm f5.6, a standard 105mm f8, a short telephoto 180mm f6.7 and a telephoto 300mm f8. Along with each lens, Fuji also made detachable viewfinders. One nice thing about the detachable finder is it makes it easy for a user to preview a scene through the finder prior to deciding if they want to change out lenses.
The Fuji GX617 uses a mechanical, Copal leaf shutter that has a top speed of 1/500 in each lens. While the lens is still mechanical the GX617 uses a battery-powered, electromagnetic release in order to trip the shutter via the button on the camera body. Meanwhile, as one might expect, the camera produces a 6x17cm image size which equates to four exposures per roll on 120 film. The camera has provisions for using 220 film (if you can find some) in which case it is able to record eight exposures.
All in all, the Fuji GX617 is a bit of a unicorn of a camera. As of the writing of this Museum Exhibit (circa 2022) we have only ever seen one of these cameras hit our inventory. That is 20 years without a previous specimen! Meanwhile the G617 (the non-interchangeable lens version) has passed through near a dozen times. So take that data point as you will. The GX617 is undoubtedly a cool camera... if you can find it.
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