Milsurp After Hours

Got another retro camera. It's a Yashica 35 GSN. The "G" stands for gold in that the connection points are gold plated. This is good since it makes the camera likely to still have usable power connections. It's a rangefinder and film rangefinders of certain sorts, like this one, are still popular and if you look on ebay you will see them being offered for amazing prices considering they are film cameras and aren't as sophisticated as a lot of SLR's that sell for $20 or less. But... it's all about condition and crap is crap and ice cream is ice cream.

I bought this one as a pig in a poke along with a Cannon EOS 7 Camera. I just was in hopes that one of them worked and really wanted the one to work to be the Yashica if that were the case. As it turned out ...both of them are in working condition. The EOS for sure and this one is looking like it works.

The biggest drawback with the old early 70's and before cameras is that they, like the Yashica, use old battery styles like the Mercury battery that is now not produced. This camera is usable with a modern battery that is about a third the size of the Mercury battery it replaces. This calls for some imagination. I used a spacer to make up for the width...from the hardware store, and a trumpet spring from my parts box as the spring to make the extra length connection.

The check light works. The over and under lights seem to be working. The shutter fires.... I hope correctly. From what I read it has an exceptionally good lens. Now just need to run some film through it.

Here's a site that tells some things about the camera.

http://www.photoethnography.com/Classic ... 35GSN.html

Nice find Robert hope you get some decent pics from it, and an interesting link you posted there too.
Joe

Tried it out in the back yard today just to see how it worked. And... the camera seemed to set the shutter speed ok for the choice of lens opening. The warning lights of over or under exposure seemed somewhat confused at times....or maybe it was just me that was confused. There did seem to be some light leaks in a few of the images ... the seals look less than good condition and this is a easy fix. I did notice that my old eyes had a hard time locating the match the image spot on relatively closeup shots at about two and a half feet. Its relatively small in area and probably a benefit for close ups.

But with and electronic shutter that was questionable to begin with in my mind, I'd say that part has proven to be nothing to worry about. And the shutter is real quiet in operation. You have to really listen to hear it when the shutter fires. Here are a few of the shots that were somewhat up to par.

Good results Robert

Here's one where I called myself focusing on the Pelican figures at 1.7 and missing them. Notice where the grill in the table top starts to come in clear.