Milsurp After Hours

Yashica Lynx 5000. Camera came around in 1962 but was more modern and upscale than the popular Minister D that showed up in 1964. The Lynx 5000 has fast top speed of 1/1000 compared to the D's 1/500. It has a 1.8 wide open lens compared to the D's 2.8. It's only competition in the Yashica line was the Lynx 14 with the 1.4 lens that only Leica could match ...but the Lynx 14 had only a top 1/500 shutter speed.

I got a Lynx 5000 on a pig in a poke deal for $20. Turned out a stuck battery cover could be opened with a little contact cleaner and the old leaking battery replaced in a cleaned battery compartment and a new 625a battery seemed to make the light meter work relatively right.

This camera works like "normal", meaning just shutter speeds and apertures and a distance scale against a light meter the shows up in the view finder and also on top of the camera. Split screen focus in the view finder. No archaic light value scale like on the D.

I ran a roll of film through the camera but had a major problem. The film seemed to have been rewound when I opened the back to find it had only gotten partly wound because of a flaw in the film that caused the film to rip from the stock in the canister. The rip was deep in the canister so I only got a handful of what were the least photographically interesting images developed. Have to try this again on a sunny day. I think the lens is likely to be pretty sharp.

I had some Fuji color film of unknown expiration date I got on ebay with some other stuff. I was ready to mix up a fresh C-41 chemical kit batch. And.... I had a conversation of the talk at kind on facebook about the Lynx D. So I thought I'd try the Lynx 5000 out again for the second time.

I thought the camera light meter was way over exposing but used the indications given for the first part of the roll. I used my Sekonic light meter for the second part of the roll and thought the exposure indications were way too under exposed. Results mixed. The lens seems good. The meter seems unknown accuracy but very suspect. The focus through the window was awful as the focus double image outline about non existent. The no doubt expired film had amazing forgiveness for over or under exposure.