Yashica Electro 35 GSN
22 December 2004, the wee hours
My Yashica finally arrived today. Shopping on eBay, while quite cost effective, lacks the instant satisfaction one gets from going to the mall. Camera shops in Toronto seem to sell cameras for much more then eBay, so I am willing to put up with less them prompt service. The camera looks great; I wasn’t sure what to expect. I still need to track down some sort of battery for the beast so I can give it a run. Most everyone is quite favourable in their reviews of this camera: Matt’s Cameras, Photoethnography, Yashica Guy, Alfred’s Camera Page, Nikonian Discussion.
Looks nice cosmetic wise. Hopefully the lens lives upto its reputation.
I recently purchased a Minolta Hi-Matic 7S. Waiting for it to be delivered.
Next: a Konica Auto S2. Its all your fault! ;-)
by Sunny on December 22 2004, 8:13 am #
How’s the low light focusing? I find this to be a problem with the XA.
by mk on December 22 2004, 3:21 pm #
The rangefinder is pretty dim, so I would imagine it’ll be tricky at night. Though, I think with a camera like this your best bet is to keep the aperture closed tight and just use the scale to focus.
Both cameras sound cool Sunny, let us know how they turn out.
by ramanan on December 22 2004, 8:49 pm #
I don’t know, I’ve been using ISO 800 for a while now and the shutter speeds tend to be kind of slow in most indoor situations at f 2.8
by mk on December 22 2004, 11:29 pm #
That doesn’t sound right. Are you sure your light meter is working properly. My Pentax has no trouble snapping a photo at f2.8 and 1/60s with ISO 400 film in my very dim apartment. Your XA should be able to snap pictures at 1/30s without a tripod, and at 800 ISO I don’t think it should have any trouble getting that. Of course, what you want is something like f5 or f8 to make the focusing easier. I would think a well lit room indoors should be provide enough light for that.
by ramanan on December 23 2004, 12:01 am #
Well, it seems like I’m always in very dim interiors I guess. I usually don’t have the option of stopping down. Of course, outside in the daytime I can use f16 or f22.
by mk on December 23 2004, 1:41 am #