Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Fujica ST701

Fuji · Fujica ST mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1970

single source, unconfirmed via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: ST-701 · ST 701 · ST701 · Fuji ST701 · フジカ ST701 · フジカST701 · FUJICA ST-701

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
ST701 Fujica ST 1970–1976 — No figure published
  1. Fujifilm's own corporate history dates the ST701 to July 1970, released at home and for export together, and camera-wiki agrees; the English Wikipedia table lists it under 1971. The 1970 date is adopted because it is the maker's. The 1976 end date is from an ITmedia article on the camera and nothing from Fuji confirms it.
  2. The 45,800-yen launch price with the 55mm f/1.8 comes from one Japanese blog and is the single-source flag on this page. No US list price was found in a source that could be read.
  3. Two body weights circulate: 585g in the instruction manual (which also gives 780g with the f/1.8 lens) and 574g in the English Wikipedia table. The manual's figure is adopted.
  4. The manual specifies two 1.3V mercury cells; camera-wiki and most later accounts write 1.35V. camera-wiki is explicit that the meter "simply will not work at all with higher voltage modern batteries". The shutter needs no battery.
  5. The ST701 has no aperture coupling tab and no lens lock: it meters stopped down with any M42 lens, including Fujinons. The Fujinon lenses of 1972 onward carry a tab on the aperture ring for the ST801 and later bodies; on the ST701 the tab does nothing, but it prevents those lenses screwing fully home on some other makers' M42 bodies and on plain adapters.
  6. Stuart Jenkins measured the stop-down pusher bar on the Fujica bodies at 8.0mm from the flange and found that five of twelve automatic M42 lenses he tried begin to close their aperture with the pin further out than that, so they stop down partway when mounted on any Fujica. That is a body-side clearance issue and is separate from the coupling tab.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The smallest of the Fujica M42 bodies at 585g body only; 133 × 91 × 88mm with the 55mm f/1.8
  • Match-needle readout at the right of the screen; no LEDs of any kind
  • Stop-down metering only: the front button closes the diaphragm and switches the meter on together

ST701:

  • No hot shoe on the prism: the accessory shoe is a clip-on that fits the eyepiece frame
  • Meter switch and depth-of-field button combined in one button on the front, beside the mount
  • Two small round mercury-cell chambers; the manual specifies two 1.3V cells (Mallory RM-400R or Ever Ready E400)
  • Plain M42 thread with no lens lock button and no aperture-coupling ring around the flange

Serial-range notes

first version
Protruding chrome Fujica name on the prism front, a triangle marked on the self-timer lever, a bare metal advance lever, no hot shoe, microprism-only screen. camera-wiki's three-version account; no serial numbers are published for the break.
second version
Name engraved and paint-filled (white or black) rather than raised; still no hot shoe.
third version
Hot shoe added on the prism and a split-image spot in the centre of the microprism. Chasing Classic Cameras notes that later bodies also moved the specification engraving to the base plate.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, 0.96× with the 55mm f/1.8; microprism centre on early bodies, microprism with a split-image spot on the third version. Zero-in needle at the right of the screen. · 0.96× magnification · no rangefinder image
Shutter
horizontal-travel cloth focal plane, mechanical · B, 1s – 1/1000 · flash sync X and FP sockets on the front; X at 1/60 · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever, 193° throw
Back
hinged
Meter
TTL average reading at the taking aperture (stop-down), two silicon photocells beside the eyepiece feeding an FET circuit, zero-in needle in the finder; ASA 25–3200, EV 1–18 at ASA 100 with an f/1.4 lens. Two 1.3V mercury cells (Mallory RM-400R, Ever Ready E400) power the meter only; the shutter is mechanical throughout.
Weight
585 g
Dimensions
133 × 91 × 88 (W × H × D) with the 55mm f/1.8, from the instruction manual mm
Country
Japan
Original price
45,800 yen with the Fujinon 55mm f/1.8, July 1970 (ob-scura.com, quoting the launch price; the Pentax SP was 42,000 yen) (today ¥160,000)
Accessories
Clip-on accessory shoe (eyepiece-mounted) · Right-angle finder, eye cup and eyesight-correction lenses · Extension tubes, bellows, reverse adapter, microscope adapter, Leica mount adapter

Where sources disagree

First
  • July 1970 — Fujifilm corporate history, camera-wiki, the ITmedia article
  • 1971 — English Wikipedia's Fujica table

Better supported: 1970

The maker dates it; Wikipedia's table gives no month and may be recording availability.

Weight (grams)
  • 585g body only — the instruction manual
  • 574g — English Wikipedia's Fujica table

Better supported: 585g

What reviewers say

History

The ST701 is where Fuji’s 35mm SLR line begins. The company’s own history says it needed a single-lens reflex to grow the camera business and its exports, and the camera it released in July 1970, at home and abroad on the same day, was a compact M42 body with one new idea in it: the meter read through two silicon photocells rather than CdS. Silicon was faster and more sensitive, and the ST701 was the first SLR to use it. Everything else was conventional for the year — a cloth focal-plane shutter from 1 second to 1/1000 and B, a stop-down match-needle meter switched on by the same front button that closes the diaphragm, an eye-level prism at 0.96× magnification, and a Praktica thread mount that takes any 42mm lens. It weighed 585g without a lens and cost 45,800 yen with the 55mm f/1.8, which was more than a Pentax SP.

The ST701 has no aperture coupling of any kind. That matters for what came after: from the ST801 of 1972 Fuji’s lenses carry a small tab on the aperture ring and a recess for a lock pin, so that the later bodies can meter at full aperture. On the ST701 none of that exists, the meter works stopped down with any M42 lens, Fujinon or otherwise, and there is no lens lock button. The reverse is not true — a Fujinon with the tab does not screw fully home on some other makers’ M42 bodies or on plain adapters, and previous owners sometimes filed the tab off. One body-side quirk does affect this camera along with every other Fujica: Stuart Jenkins measured the stop-down pusher bar at 8.0mm from the flange and found five of twelve automatic M42 lenses begin closing their aperture before that, so they stop down partway on any Fujica body.

Three versions are described by camera-wiki, none of them dated by Fuji. The first has a raised chrome Fujica name on the prism, a triangle on the self-timer lever and no hot shoe; the second has the name engraved and paint-filled; the third adds a hot shoe on the prism and a split-image spot in the centre of the microprism, where the early screen is microprism only. Later bodies also moved the specification engraving to the base plate. An ITmedia article has production running to 1976, by which time the ST605 had taken over the entry position.

The meter is what to check. The manual calls for two 1.3V mercury cells, RM-400R or E400, and camera-wiki is blunt that the circuit will not work at all on modern higher-voltage cells; both reviewers below found their examples’ meters dead, and one had to pad zinc-air cells to fit. The shutter is mechanical and needs no battery, so a body with a dead meter is still a working camera with a hand-held meter. Foam seals and the mirror bumper are of the age, and one Japanese owner reports shutter bounce on his.

No production figure has been published for the ST701 or any other Fujica M42 body.

Expand Collapse

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.

Photographs

Fujica ST701
Fujica ST701 with the Fujinon 55mm f/1.8 — Alfred from Germany, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Fujica ST701
Fujica ST701, shown at P&E China 2016 — Morio, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Fujica ST701
Fujica ST701 with the Fujinon 50mm f/1.4, focus-stacked — s58y, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $60 across 38 fixed-price listings on 2026-10-19 (middle half $35–$80). Tracked since 2026-09-20, 7 days: down 8% from $65.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-10-19$60$35–$8038
2026-10-18$60$35–$8038
2026-10-17$60$35–$8038
2026-10-16$65$45–$9036
2026-10-15$65$45–$8034
2026-09-21$60$34–$8042
2026-09-20$65$35–$10041

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 92 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-10-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Fujica ST801 · Fujica ST901 · Fujica ST605 / 605N / 605 II · Fujica ST705 / 705W · Fujica AZ-1

Lenses for this body: Fujinon 28mm f/3.5 · Fujinon 35mm f/2.8 · EBC Fujinon 50mm f/1.4 · Fujinon 55mm f/1.8 · EBC Fujinon-T 100mm f/2.8 · EBC Fujinon-T 135mm f/3.5 · EBC Fujinon-T 200mm f/4.5

Sources (10)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.