Yashica 35 ME

I purchased two vintage point and shoot cameras, and this post is related to the Yashica 35 ME. Both cameras were purchased for the princely sum of £4:99GBP and that equates to roughly £2:50GBP each. Both cameras were sold with the following sales statement:

This bundle includes a Yashica 35 ME and Ricoh Auto 35, two vintage 35mm film cameras ideal for collectors or those seeking parts for repair projects.

These cameras are being sold as faulty and for parts or repair only. They have not been tested for functionality and may have issues with their mechanical or electronic components.

Cosmetically, both cameras may show signs of wear consistent with age and previous use, such as scuffs, scratches, or dust. No accessories, batteries, or additional items are included, €”only the two cameras as pictured.

EBay

Having purchased from this seller before, I suspect the cameras themselves are in perfect working order mechanically, but as one camera – the Ricoh, is from 1960 and now in its 66th year of existence, I very much suspect the issue would be with it’s Selenium light cell that is more than likely now very dead. The Yashica however is from 1972 and has a CdS light cell that could also be an issue, more than likely related to the old Mercury 1.3v battery that used to supply it. Either way, even without the light sensors both cameras are very capable of doing what they were built for, however you’d just have to use a separate light meter or use the “Sunny 16” rule. Let’s wait their arrival so we can asses the issue. You can read more regarding the types of light metering used on these two cameras by reading a recent post of mine regarding their differences Photographic light sensors in older point and shoot cameras

Some more photos from the seller:

Whilst we await their arrival here is a little bit about the Yashica 35 ME:

The Yashica 35-ME is a small, compact 35mm viewfinder camerawith auto exposure, made in Japan by Yashica, introduced c. March 1972. 

It uses a 38mm f/2.8 lens made of 4 elements in 3 groups with a screw-in filter size of 46mm. The film speedis set using a ring around the lens, with the setting window on the bottom face of the lens. The metering system uses a CdS sensor with a sensitivity of 8 to 17 EV. The viewfinder has bright line frames with parallax correction marks for focus distance of 1.5 meters or closer. The shutter display scale is on the right of the finder has speed markings 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250 and 1/650 of second. Aperture scale is also displayed at 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8 and 14. The setting for the meter uses a pointer type indicator. Correct exposure is assured when the pointer is in the yellow areas of the scales. Also in the finder scale is over exposure, under exposure zones along with symbols of the selected zone focusing settings. The top plate carries the shutter release, hot shoe and frame counter.

Specifications

• Lens: Yashica 38mm f2.8; zone and feet/metres scales
• Shutter: Copal auto, speed set by metering, 1/30-1/650 sec.
• Meter: CdS sensor
• Film speed: 25 to 400 ASA
• Flash: hot shoe, flash sync 1/25 of a sec.
• Power: 1.3v mercury

Camera-wiki.org

It’s arrived, it has that familiar aroma of age old mustiness, but looks a nice item, in good condition for a camera that is now 50+ years old.

Assessment:

The case is quite tatty, but it does the job. The body is dusty but free of any dinks dents or scars. Inside the rear of the camera all is good, it’s clean and the light seals are ok. They will need replacing at some point, but currently they appear to be ok.

The winder works fine, the shutter fires and there is no sticking of the shutter leafs.

When you look through the viewfinder it’s a fairly clear view, however the exposure reading needle on the right is sitting firmly on the bottom of the scale. Moving the camera from light to dark makes no difference, the meter is not responsive. Let’s check the battery.

Repair:

The battery that was used is an LR44 cell rather than the old Mercury 1.3v cells that used to be installed on these cameras. They are hard to come by nowadays and people tend to go with the more modern LR44 cells that have a slightly higher voltage of 1.5v. They work, however some have stated that they notice a slight overexposure of about one stop, personally I haven’t really had issues when I have made these battery changes in the past. Each to their own as they say.

The battery currently in place was dead so I tried a new battery to no avail. When I opened the battery chamber again I then noticed some oxidation of the contacts, so a quick clean with some contact cleaner and they looked a lot different.

A new battery back in place, and hey presto the light meter is now working.

I’ve given a good disinfectant clean. Buffed up the case to make the best of a bad thing, and it all looks good. The only thing I can do now is run some film through it to give it a final test. I have some old out of date colour film at home, so I will use one of these to run a test roll. As I stated at the beginning there is not really a lot that can go wrong with these point and shoots, and I’m confident that the only issue was with the exposure meter as everything else seems to be fine. let’s get that film run through the camera to check things out.

I’ve taken the film out of the fridge. It’s a roll of Kodak Gold 200ASA film, and it’s only 20 years out of date. I’ve tested a roll of this before, you can see that post here: 20yr old Kodak Gold.

The results won’t be anything spectacular, it will be grainy, it will have a colour cast and in fact might not even work at all. After this period of time the sensitively Will have dropped so I’m going to over expose this roll by one stop to attempt to compensate a bit. This 200ASA film will be exposed on this occasion at 100ASA. When I’ve exposed this it will be off to a local film developer- Classic photo supplies – for them to do the developing and scanning. Read this post regarding my rationale behind using this film: 3..2..1 – 20yrs out of date.

Result:

Well, the scans of the developed film have arrived back and it has proven a couple of things, one that the camera does actually work and two, that the film has definitely reached its limits, as the negatives show immense grain, and a colour cast due to the chemical structure of the film breaking down. I’m glad I only overexposed by one stop, I know that the recommended +2 stops would have been too much for this film. Below I have displayed a selection of pictures from this film, you can see the age related “colour cast” along with grain size if you zoom in. These aren’t the high quality pictures as the originals came back at about 30mpx each, and that would be far too high a resolution to show on this site, and I’d probably use up all of my photo allowance as well. So here are the greatly reduced results of those scans.

To be totally honest if you switch to B/W in editing mode, all the pictures come out fine and are completely presentable and maybe that’s the way to go with the next batch, don’t bother trying to get a good colour balance as that will never be achievable, just display in good old black and white, you can’t go wrong.

So the camera works, and this one will now be put aside until I decide how I’m going to move it on. It’s such a basic camera, the distance selections are questionable, but that’s just a remnant of the 70s technology behind it. It’s a good little point and shoot, but I do believe the likes of the Olympus trip totally outshone all other competitors in the point and shoot category.

Job done. Another old camera saved from the scrap heap, and given a new lease of life, and it probably took no more than 10 minutes to get it back in working order.

Thanks for passing by, it’s very much appreciated.