A friend sent this camera to me to try, but I was sure I had tried it before. I looked at my list and I had the original Minister, and the Minister III, but not the D so hello new Minister!!

Neither of the other Ministers worked perfectly so I was a little wary of this one. Sure enough, when I first picked it up, the ASA dial was completely jammed. The light meter seemed to be responding, but the camera was set to 100asa and could not be moved. Of course I didn’t accept that and tried to budge it…it would not budge. I tried pliers and it wouldn’t move at all. There was some sort of crud around the bottom of the dial. I used some vinegar and soaked the area with that for a few hours. Then I sprayed the dial with WD40 and left it over night.

The next morning, I tried the dial again. It moved!! BUT did it affect the light meter readings? YES!!

The camera now seemed to work as it should so I loaded it with a roll of NoColorStudio Experimental No. 10 and took it to the National Memorial Arboretum. I thought my friend would be interested in the photos I might get from there.

I haven’t been to the place before and didn’t really know what to expect. When I read about or see a video of a place that looks interesting, I put a placemark on my Google Maps. Then when I am travelling somewhere far away, I have places to visit along the journey. The was one of those places. I was going to visit some friend’s photo exhibition and it was a four hour drive. The arboretum was half way to the gallery, a perfect place to stop and have a wander before heading on with the journey.

For such a solemn place, at times it was genuinely happy. A Stick Man Trail had just opened when I visited, so there were families with children roaming the area. That lifted up the atmosphere and honestly, without them it would have been overwhelming. Once I got to the main memorial and saw the empty wall, waiting for new names of fallen soliders, I found it difficult not to become emotional. Of course, there were other visitors there who had gone to pay their respects, which added to the emotiveness of the place. Thank goodness for children’s literature.

Here are my results.

In the last shot, you can see the results of all the rain we have had. Some parts of the arboretum were completely flooded, so I could not see all the areas. I might go back another day, a bluer sky day. Oh and if you are reading this post on a website that has not give a direct link to cameragocamera.com then they have stolen the content without permission. I thought I would add this here as another website has been reposting my content as their own without my permission. If they are lazy enough to do that, they might be lazy enough to post it without checking the content. We shall see.

What about the camera? It worked great. The rangefinder patch was clear and the light meter worked perfectly. The light meter is uncoupled and the camera will work without it or batteries, but it is more convenient when it does . Mike Eckman has a great review of this camera from 1963 and states…

The fourth and final revision was called the Minister-D…  I suspect “D” was supposed to signify the 4th letter of the alphabet instead of simply calling it the Minister 4.

I think I will end up recovering mine, just because it looks so simple to do. The pieces are a nice easy shape to replicate. As for the camera, they can be found for a bargain price in the usual places. You can read more about this camera and other Yashicas at the wonderful Yashica Guy website.