This camera came to me via a junk box; it didn’t work.

The stuff in the box was gratefully received, and I have now gone through everything. I haven’t kept anything, but passed on anything working to other film-loving people. The Halina was turned into a pinhole camera as the lenses had fallen off. The Ensign, which was the only working camera, was cleaned and given to a grateful recipient. The Minolta SLR was as dead as a dead thing and was recycled for screws, cogs, and springs. The two lenses were sold to help pay for this camera’s ‘repair’.

As for this Yashica, the shutter wasn’t ‘shuttering’. It was also very dirty. I decided that, as I had received the camera for nothing, to have a look at the mechanism by taking the front off. It was clear someone had tried before, as the screws were badly stripped. It took me a while to get into it.

Looking at the internals, I figured out how to manually activate the shutter. On doing so, the shutter did in fact ‘shutter’, so why wasn’t it doing so when attached to the main body? Well, I don’t know much about TLR insides, but it seemed the bent-looking lever was not pushing the other one enough, due to the said ‘bend’. Very technical. So I straightened the bent lever, and it started shuttering as it should.

So I put it back on the main body, and that is when more issues occurred. Now it was shuttering, but not at the right speeds; everything was off, or rather, they didn’t match the speeds selected. At this point, I decided it was worth sending it off for a proper service or rather, a clean and service. I will link to the repairer, JFR, because they did a good job with a terrible patient. Firstly, they said someone had been fiddling with it before due to the stripped screws- yes, me, and someone else before me. They said the camera had a number of missing shims, which might cause a focus error. That definitely wasn’t me, as I had no pieces left over on my table. He said it might only be truly in focus at high apertures, and wide open might not be in focus. Due to that issue, he only charged a minimum fee for the cleaning and misalignment. What an honest guy.

So, when the camera came back, I looked at the focusing via a screen on the back.

You know what, it didn’t look bad to my eyes. Before spending more time on it, in terms of reskinning, I decided to try a roll of film in my local park. I loaded a roll of Kentmere 400 and got to ‘shuttering’

Here are the results; I had the camera wide open due to the rainy weather and made sure not to just shoot at infinity.

Oh, and I tried the flash connection. Well, apart from the one shot at infinity, they were OK. It made me think that one shot might have been camera shake??

After that, I decided to reskin the front and load another roll, this time FP4 and take it along to Derwent Dam. All the rain meant the plugholes would be overflowing, and I had never seen that. I also hadn’t seen the dam overflowing, so I was quite excited. I chose that film as I thought I might get some shots for the upcoming “convergence” zine by The Photozine Collective.

Here are most of the results.

Again, these were taken wide open. I think they are a little soft, but more than acceptable in my eyes. Did you see the plugholes? No? That’s because they are not at that dam and I was in the wrong location. Oh well, still a nice dam though.

I also took a video of the camera and the dam in full flow, just for fun.

You can hear the water’s power, and I hope you like the skin choice. I think it matches the water and waves.

Now I said most of the results because a strange thing happened. For the only time while using this camera, the wind on had an issue, and two shots overlapped. The resulting shot was the one I submitted for the zine; I could not have planned it if I had tried.

Again, you can see the softness, but the way the roots turn into the bridge, or converge with them, wow.

At the time, I wasn’t sure due to the accidental nature of it. So I set out for another water location, this time Ladybower Reservoir…where the actual plugholes are.

Trying to get a photo of the plugholes when you are short was a bit tricky. A few of my shots were wonky as I had to hold the camera upside down, above my head. One of my friends had done that with a camera of mine recently, with dramatic results. This camera was much safer to use to complete the manoeuvre.

There wasn’t anything on the roll that would change my choice for the zine. The last thing I needed to try was a roll with a smaller aperture; I had to wait a while for that as it rained and rained and rained and rained. Then we had a heatwave, so I loaded a roll of HP5 and went to Lea Gardens near Matlock. Oh, and of course, finished the roll with a photo of Dad in our garden.

Now I see these results, I think there is definitely a softness at infinity. The sharper images are when I have focused at a closer distance. You can see this in the photo of my father and the flowers.

Well, that was fun, oh but what about the camera??

It is a Yashica 635, the name comes from the 6×6 format and the fact you can get a 35mm adapter kit for it. I don’t have that and didn’t want to invest in one right now. It was introduced in 1958 and had a long run. It ceased production around 1971, so who knows how old this one is?? Well, that link gives this explanation…

Around SX 6021xxx (February 1966), the hood emblem changed to the wide “Y” type. The parallel bars on the rear of the focusing hood changed to black with camera SX 7071xxx, around July 1967.

Given that this one has the serial number SX7061445 and silver parallel bars, I suspect this one was produced around 1966.

You can read another review here, and see much sharper images. I did enjoy using and playing with this camera, but I have quite a few like it so I have decided to return to the theme of passing on cameras that have been give to me. This one is now winging its way to a lovely friend in Holland who is not at all perturbed by the softness of the lens.

Oh and WordPress has a new feature: turn posts into podcasts. Listen below.