I already have a Yashica 44 minus the LM (light meter). Then I read a post on my friend’s website where he describes his experience with this LM version. He also made a video for a 365 project, which I have posted below but you should really check out his site. I have added it to the “Feed from other blogs” page.

I managed to get a beat up version from the bay, it was so cheap that I was willing to take a risk on it.

When it arrived, everything seemed to work so I loaded it with some Retro Vision 50D which I had cut down from a 120 roll so another friend could have some 16mm film for his project. Of course, the Yashica 44LM is a 127 camera.

I was a bit unsure if the light meter was working accurately, so I used a seperate one. As it is uncoupled, it not working didn’t really make a difference to useability. In the end, I found the light meter worked intermittently.

I took the LM to Leeds for a wander on a cloudy, rainy day, as per usual recently. It meant holding the camera very steady for slow exposures, wide open.

Here are a few results from that roll:

As with the regular 44, it was a bit hard to find the focusing sweet spot due to the lack of a split screen or microprism. When you hit it though, it is super sharp.

I was so enamoured with the LM, I took it to Analogue Spotlight to play with again. Unfortunately, the very first time I took it out of my bag, I noticed the shutter was either not opening or opening very slowly. Bugger.

Once home again, I decided to see if I could get access to the shutter blades. The front element and the back one were easily removed. It made me think this has been done before to this camera. Once those were out, voila, shutter blade access, simple as!

With open access, I flushed the blades with lighter fluid and kept accuating the shutter until it worked properly and consistently. That done, I loaded a roll of expired Jessops R100 and developed it in caffenol which I learned to do at Spotlight. I didn’t go far, just my garden and my father’s bird shed.

Yatta! The camera was working again and I successfully used caffenol without a guide 🙂

I had quite a bit of 127 cut down, so decided to load it again…it jammed again. I could open it up again and clean the blades again, but to be honest I have a working 44 so I don’t really want to spend more time on this camera. Though I do like it, I have one, I don’t need two and without the working lightmeter this one is just a regular 44.

My plans for the year, of reducing my collection, completing more projects, and not get stuck obsessing over certain cameras made me rethink the next step. I have now arranged for this one to go to a new home. A new friend who has been buying lots of cameras recently after reading this blog, so it is the least I can do 😉

This camera is ripe for someone to spend time or money on it to get it working consistently, but that someone is not me, maybe it is him??

Here are a couple of other useful resources about this camera:
http://yashicatlr.com/yashica44series.html
https://utahfilmphotography.com/2019/12/10/yashica-44-lm-1958-1962/

Oh, on the reduction project subject, I have also swapped the Maximar 207/3 for some film and a tub of mints…best swap ever!