1968 Yashica Electro 35 Rangefinder
Double-exposure tests, Expired Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO, Developed in Caffenol-C 18 minutes.
indoors, dim lighting
Inside, testing out flash sync at various apertures
This is not normally what I keep in my camera bag. You’d think that a bagful of camera gear would make an uncomfortable bed, but #6 doesn’t think so.
wide open at f1.7 with flash creates an interesting solarized effect.
I visited Key Snap last week to pick up an M42 macro bellows he found for me, and to deliver one of the Marantz’s so he could listen to the tapes he found along with his recently acquired Olympia SM-9. When I arrived, he was testing out a Polaroid Land Camera that he’d gotten working again.
Erik’s Polaroid photo of me!
I wish I’d brought the flash this day. difficult lighting for taking pics in the shade with strong backlight
Another of Erik’s Polaroids. There seems to be a ghost that follows me around, that only the Polaroid process can see. (or maybe a light leak in the bellows?)
Brisket! This time, while visiting a different Eric, who makes amazing barbeque!
That is a slick-looking 35. I assume the “Electro” refers to the meter setting the aperture. But I am way curious about the indicator lights on top – one marked “SLOW” and the other “UNDER”. Very interesting. Any clue?
BTW, my wife likes your full beard – I may need to go that way from my van dyke style.
Tony
it’s actually Aperture Priority auto-exposure with the meter setting the speed on the Copal-Electro leaf shutter. Theoretically the shutter operates in stepless speeds from 30s to 1/500s. The indicator lights are for overexposure: red, (will not shoot) or yellow: underexposure (will shoot, but warns that you need a steady hand). They show up at the top of the viewfinder (which is parallax-correcting) and at the top of the unit (in case you’ve pre-focused and are shooting from the hip).
It meters from a CdS just over the top of the lens, so any filters you put on need to be corrected for in the ISO setting. No TTL metering. (:
PS: here’s a review of the GSN model, a few years newer than the G model I have and a bit more featureful:
http://www.thephoblographer.com/2011/07/26/review-yashica-electro-35-gsn-the-poor-mans-rangefinder
Nice camera. I do not remember any indicators on the TL Electros I’ve used. I remember the reason I liked them was interchangeable lenses. Well, that was back in the old days when I was in college and a few years there after.
Ahh, the TL Electros are SLR’s, I have a TL 1000 too. Nice machine, with M42 lens mount – I just find the viewfinder meter to be easily washed out in sunlight – I prefer match needles on my SLRs. The 35’s indicator lights are so bright they’re impossible to miss. The Electro 35’s have a fixed lens that isn’t interchangable (sadly, but then the lens it does have is pretty darn good).
Your still life compositions are always so pleasing. I’d say I liked the pics you took of me if I recognized that fat guy ;-)
Thanks! hey, you could always have a severe diabetic attack and drop 60 pounds in a month like I did. *fun* (not). :D
I do still lifes and cat pics because I still have that fear of street-shooting people, and I’m just learning the quirks of my cameras anyway. I’m starting to feel that once I do screw up the courage to do street shooting, it’ll be this camera I use. it’s fast to work with, has an almost inaudible shutter click and can be easily pre-focused and stopped down for shooting pics without actually looking like you’re shooting pics (IE, hip-shooting). I’m finding that rangefinders like this are much easier to get a fast focus lock in extremely low-light situations too, as long as the focusing prism is still good. Much easier than even the split-prism focus screens on my nicer SLRs, which can black out at smaller f-stop settings.
Nice! I’ve been toying with getting one of these Yashicas, but I only got my Trip 35 (or rather, one of them) working properly again, I hope, and I’m a little wary of snagging more film cameras at the moment.
On top of all that, it seems that the little that I learned about photography back in the ’80s has begun to be forgotten. I’m tempted to do a photography course and start from scratch.
Nice Caffenol shots, too, Ted. The one of the cat sitting on the case looks like it could have been taken in the late 1950s.
Which is neat.
Yeah, I keep looking at Trip 35’s and the half-frame Pen EES.2’s on the ‘bay, and even put in a lowball bid that got sniped. I keep hoping one will show up in my thrifts, but patience is *hard*!
Not that temptation isn’t everywhere; now that I’m liking this Electro 35 so much, I see another one, the newer GSN model on local Craigslist for $30:
http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/pho/4356162351.html
I’m gonna have to poke Key Snap and see if he wants it, before my willpower breaks and I grab it myself. :P
I sent the seller an email. I’ll let you know what happens.
That’s a very nice camera. I see those from time to time on shopgoodwill, but as you know, rarely in the wild.