Those that know Nicole and I know that we have what appears to be an on going camera acquisition problem. To remedy this but continue to try out ALL of the cameras we have decided to start borrowing cameras from our fellow camera enthusiasts instead of trying to purchase or hoard them all to ourselves. Not all are winners though and some are just easier or more fun to use but you have to shoot with them first to find out! Thus, we decided if we run a roll through every camera we are interested in, not unlike going on a 5 minute date with a bunch of strangers at a singles night, we can quickly see which are worthy of being added to our collection (or put on our list of “must haves.”) Camera speed dating!
Here is most recent camera I had the pleasure of a quick date with….the Yashica Electro 35 MC.
A few quick facts about the Yashica Electro 35 MC…one of many small pocket sized cameras manufactured in the early 1970s, this little camera was aimed at those looking for something with mostly automatic features and that would fit in their purse or pocket. I borrowed this little camera from a friend to try out as I had never seen it before. We have had a few of its bigger brother the Yashica Electro 35 come through the store and I was never particularly taken by it though I’ve heard it’s a good camera. If I’m going to have a 35mm “point and shoot” or rangefinder camera, I like it to be as small as possible and the larger Electro 35 is too big for me. This little guy fits the bill though. However, it is not a rangefinder but a zone focus camera, which I’m generally not as interested in but there was something about this tiny camera that I was drawn to. It has a nice Yashinon-DX 40mm f/2.8 lens and runs only on aperture priority mode. The finish on this camera is eye catching too, I find. It is a sort of brushed metal look.
The zone focus is one thing to get used to and trust that you have any clue what distance your subject matter is at. I do alot of street or scenery photography mainly though, especially with point and shoots or rangefinders, so generally infinity settings usual serve me fairly well. When testing this camera out I tried to put my distance guessing to the test however and for the most part I did alright! Missed it on prob 3 closer shots on the roll. The more difficult thing to get used to with this camera though I found was the complete lack of settings information. Most cameras that are aperture priority at least let you know what shutter speed the camera is choosing for you to help you better decide which aperture to use. This one tells you nothing. The aperture ring does give you a slight hint with a sun or cloud icon and obviously most anyone that shoots manual regularly can figure out what your aperture setting might be on a cloudy or sunny day, but it still is a bit to get used to! So I clicked away and trusted that this little camera knew what it was doing….and it turns out it did! In general I was very impressed with the results and I would definitely shoot it again. It is a handy size and good to know I can get great results with it on the fly. I was also very impressed with its lower light capablities as well, no doubt partly due to it’s fast 2.8 lens. I used AGFA Vista 200 for this test roll.
