I embraced the travelling Yashica at the start of February, being based in the heart of the Cotswolds I was hoping to take the little camera on a journey through the rambling countryside. Unfortunately the hands of fate had a different idea so I had to make do with taking it on journey around my house.
Saturday morning was looking pretty dreary, but around lunchtime there was break in the grey sky. So we grabbed the kids I loaded the Yashica with a fresh roll of Fuji Superia Xtra 400 and headed out in the woods. Five shots in the camera decided it wasn’t enjoying the dense woodland and automatically rewound the film back into the canister. Annoying, we were miles away from home and that was the only roll of film I’d brought with me. When I got home I proceeded to tweet with Hamish to see what might be wrong with little Yashica, we decided maybe it was a little bit jet-lagged. So second times a charm, I reloaded the camera with Illford Delta 3200. Unfortunately the dreary Cotswold rain was non-stop by now so it was going to have be some indoor improvisation.
I spent the next few hours harassing my children, cat and numerous inanimate objects with the Yashica, testing out it’s low light autofocus, weight, speed and usability.
Once I had successfully explored my dark, cosy surroundings I carefully packed it all up and sent it back to Hamish for a bit of R&R. I sent the roll of film off to UK Film Lab to be developed (and then spent far too long holding onto them and getting up!)
My thoughts on the camera:
- It was a great little camera to point and shoot, fast and easy to use.
- Great weight, felt really comfortable
- Sensitive shutter
- The shots came out under exposed, which I was surprised at. Maybe I was using too high and ISO film?
- In high contrast areas it was hard to make sure it was exposing for right light. I haven’t used a camera on full automatic for years so it was hard to let go and just see what the camera decided. Some shots came out as I wanted, others where very under-exposed on the subject.
Delta 3200
Mark Buckley
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