Yashica Electro 35 GSN

michelleans

Found one of these on holidays and couldn't help myself... Only cost 18 euro... Though I'm not sure if that's a good deal or not though

This is it for those of you who don't know it -

Yashica Electro 35 GSN

I of course don't have a battery but am thinking of doing what is suggested on that page above and using a spring and a 6V battery (it takes a larger discontinued 5.6V battery)

Everything seems to be working fine. It's in perfect condition as well. Without the battery, if I put a roll of film through, I'm assuming the exposures will be all wrong.

Anyone have any experience with these cameras?

ThOnda

You could use external meter or other camera to measure the light.
Or you could just guess. There would be more or less grain on BW film :-)

deaddonkey

used one, apart from having no full manual control (it's aperture priority), they're great little RF cameras.

and the meter only goes to 800 i think, so if you want to shoot fast film you'll need to manually override.

the one i used had a really clean and easy to focus RF window. good bargain.

michelleans

I was thinking about using another camera to measure the light then adjusting settings based on that.

I have a colour film in it at the mo have still to head out and shoot with it, have a BW roll at the ready too for after the colour test

Shall put up some scans of pics when I get some photos shot and developed.

deaddonkey

develop your own b/w film

seriously, it is so much fun, and it's easy and cheap.
if you can get the battery for the GSN then i'd just shoot Av mode in that, it works fine in my experience, i don't think you can adjust the shutter speed on it anyway, only the aperture.
it's a lovely camera to handle too

njburke

Hi,
I had one twenty years ago. I was in the college photography club and we had a darkroom where we could print black and whites.
I bought it in the local charity shop for £20, and I had know idea whether it worked or not. Without a manual , or anyone with any knowledge of photography (it was one of those clubs) , I figured out how to take pictures with it from trial and error, its performance radically improved when I fitted it with a battery. I used it for about two years, judging distance to set the focus.
Anyway one year in the late eighties, there was a college trip to moscow and lenigrad, I brought the yashica and about 4 or 5 rolls of cheap film. I got some cracking photographs over the 5 or 6 days, changing of the guard outside Lenins tomb, St basils, Winter palace
Earlier this year, in a bit of tidy up, I found all the photographs and negatives from the old Yashica, my wife and I spent a Saturday afternoon going through them.
Finding the old photos from the Yashica has since stirred me to go out and get a DSLR (a barely used D70) and start all over again...

Niall

Fajitas!

michelleans wrote: »

Found one of these on holidays and couldn't help myself... Only cost 18 euro... Though I'm not sure if that's a good deal or not though

This is it for those of you who don't know it -

Yashica Electro 35 GSN

I of course don't have a battery but am thinking of doing what is suggested on that page above and using a spring and a 6V battery (it takes a larger discontinued 5.6V battery)

Everything seems to be working fine. It's in perfect condition as well. Without the battery, if I put a roll of film through, I'm assuming the exposures will be all wrong.

Anyone have any experience with these cameras?

Nice find. I found a Zorki 4K myself in a flea market in Slovenia - It's an even more primitive effort from Russia

Try using the 6V battery with a spring - Having a meter will be invaluable when you're shooting - My Zorki has nothing close to that, but then again, I only paid 15 quid for it, including a flash!!!

The thing about a lot of these is that they're cheap and cheerful. Throw some film through it and have some fun with it. I like using rangefinders, though they can be a bit awkward to get used to!

You should still be able to take photos without the meter, but it'll be all guesswork or using another camera to get a light reading.

Be sure to post up the results

NJ, be sure to post up some of your D70 shots yourself

michelleans

I'd love to give developing my own film a go... Off to potter about on the internet now as I have no experience in it

njbourke - if you have any shots from your Yashica scanned in I'd love to see them!

Fajitas - the cheap and cheerful was what attracted me to it I'll definitely post up the results when I get around to it.

Now off to find a spring

njburke

Hi,
I'll scan them when I get a chance, they're not in bad shape considering they were taken in 1987 and placed in a paper bag. I'll see if I can scrounge a negative scanner from my brother, come to think of it he might still have have the Yashica.

The mechanical self timer was very useful, I'ld cycle around and if I saw a good spot, I'ld set it up on the bike and use the timer to get into the shot.
There was a place in Kerry where you'ld send off the film along with postal order, and in within 10 days or so they'ld post you back a set of prints and not one but two replacement rolls of the highest grade film.

Fajitas, I'll post one of the shots from the D70 somewhere in the forum.

Niall

sheesh

Hi
I have one I used 3 2v disk batteries as i could not find a 6v battery. I taped them into a roll and used a spring from a retractable pen to make up the extra space. It seems to work perfectly the images are perfectly exposed getting used to the manual focusing is a bit of fun too but when you get it right they are impressive. lovely camera. the sharpness on the images will suprise you.


btw if anybody has a link to how override the settings so I can use faster film I would appreciate it.

DaireQuinlan

sheesh wrote: »

btw if anybody has a link to how override the settings so I can use faster film I would appreciate it.

Does it have an exposure compensation dial ? if so you could permanently adjust it for faster film. Alternatively you could stick an ND filter in front of the lens (which would sorta obviate the whole point of using fast film in the first place). You could also stick a little bit of ND filter in front of the CDS cell. A one stop filter there with the asa setting at 800 will allow you to shoot correctly with 1600 film. OTOH the exposure reading at this stage probably isn't the most accurate anyway, if you're shooting negative I'd just set the asa to 800 and not sweat it, stop or so overexposure isn't going to make much of a difference.

<edit>
A one stop filter there with the asa setting at 800 will allow you to shoot correctly with 1600 film. oops, this is of course completely wrong. Sticking a 1 stop ND filter over the CDS would actually cause the camera to shoot 1 stop slower, not faster ...

sheesh

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Does it have an exposure compensation dial ? if so you could permanently adjust it for faster film. Alternatively you could stick an ND filter in front of the lens (which would sorta obviate the whole point of using fast film in the first place). You could also stick a little bit of ND filter in front of the CDS cell. A one stop filter there with the asa setting at 800 will allow you to shoot correctly with 1600 film. OTOH the exposure reading at this stage probably isn't the most accurate anyway, if you're shooting negative I'd just set the asa to 800 and not sweat it, stop or so overexposure isn't going to make much of a difference.

<edit>
A one stop filter there with the asa setting at 800 will allow you to shoot correctly with 1600 film. oops, this is of course completely wrong. Sticking a 1 stop ND filter over the CDS would actually cause the camera to shoot 1 stop slower, not faster ...

my head hurts:(


oh wait I get it!

njburke

Hi Michelle,
Heres a couple of scans of B&W photos taken with that Yashica twenty years ago.
One is from Galway head of the river race, the other is a mate.




Niall

michelleans

njburke wrote: »

Hi Michelle,
Heres a couple of scans of B&W photos taken with that Yashica twenty years ago.
One is from Galway head of the river race, the other is a mate.
Niall

Looks like a lot of detail in those considering they've been scanned in and were taken so long ago!

I've shot off a few photos without the battery and will grab a 6V in Maplin when I swing by Thursday and shoot the rest of the film with it in. I'm itching to see how they come out.