On my birthday last August, Emee gifted me a Yashica YF rangefinder. It needed some TLC before I could really go to town with it, so I dropped it off at Advance Camera and picked it up after I got back from Tokyo in January. The Yashica YF is a pretty rare circa 1959 machine that uses interchangeable lenses with the Leica Thread Mount, or L39. I had owned four rangefinders up to that point, but they were the consumer-level fixed-lens machines popular in the 60’s and 70’s. So this was a different beast, one that takes a little bit to get used to.
For one, it’s one of the two 35mm cameras I own that are completely manual with no semi-automatic exposure modes–my Olympus OM-1n is the other.1 But the OM-1n at least has an in-camera light meter, so I can look through the viewfinder, see where the match needle is pointing, and then appropriately adjust shutter speed and/or aperture without taking my eyes out of the viewfinder. The YF comes from a time when in-camera light meters were in their infancy and avoided with anything “pro” level. You either meter by eye using Sunny 16 or some external meter. Sometimes I use my phone, but I often use a Reflx Labs light meter that clips into the accessory (or “cold”) shoe on the top plate. The meter is pretty easy to use, though sometimes not that accurate, and battery life is pretty mediocre.2 But I paid less than $50 for mine, if I wanted something better I’d have to shell out more $$$.
Owning the Yashica YF gives me a glimpse into a lost world of rangefinders. For about three decades, starting when Leica introduced the II in 1932, interchangeable lens rangefinders with focal plane shutters reigned supreme in the 35mm world. When the YF was introduced in 1959, this era was quickly coming to a close: Single-lens reflex cameras significantly improved through the 1950s, overcoming a lot of the technical hurdles that had hobbled earlier machines. The same year that the YF was introduced also saw the release of the Nikon F, a camera that quickly became the preferred machine for professionals (especially photojournalists) and well-heeled enthusiasts. The SLR ascended through the 1960s. By the end of that decade, Leica was pretty much the only one left in the Western world who still made interchangeable lens rangefinders.3 With some limited exceptions (like Minolta’s CL/CLE cameras done in partnership with Leica, or Contax’s 90s/00’s machines) this would remain the case through the end of the film era.
There were fixed lens rangefinders through the 60s and 70s, but these were targeted to consumers, not professionals. These cameras were still good, though, at least during the beginning. My Minolta Hi-Matic 7s was a nice solid beast with a great lens and a satisfying feel. Like most of its brethren, it offered up some sort of automatic exposure. As the 70s progressed, these cameras became smaller and were often all automatic besides focus and winding/rewinding. Some late-era machines offered great fast lenses and manual override, like my Olympus 35RD. But the fixed lens rangefinder morphed into simpler viewfinders, then machines with integrated flash, and then finally the autofocus compacts that dominated consumer level 35mms through the end of the film era.
So having something that harkens to the era when rangefinders were the ultimate in 35mm cameras is nice. While a focal-plane shutter with cloth curtain is louder than the leaf shutter of fixed lens rangefinders, it’s definitely a satisfying sound. And because the Yashica YF is an all-manual camera with external light meter, there’s more of a process to using it. I know that saying “film slows you down” is cliche, but in this case it’s correct. I do make it easy on myself and choose settings that make it easy to take quick photos, especially when on the bike: Depending on the lighting conditions, I aim for a f/5.6 or f/8 aperture and a speed around 1/125 seconds, and focus at or near to infinity. This works for most occasions.
The YF is also my largest 35mm since the Minolta SR-T 101 departed the stable last month. It’s not as big, about 1 3/4 pounds with lens attached–the SR-T 101 came in at 2 pounds with a light MD 50mm f/1.7 and 2 1/4 with the MC 50mm f/1.4. But it’s heavier than both of my SLRs and the Canonet QL17 GIII. It’s definitely a “strap ’round shoulder” machine as it doesn’t fit easily into my on-bike stem bags.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying using the Yashica YF. It’s a nice-looking camera and fun to use. Do I have any quibbles? Yes. The film loading is more complicated than any other 35mm I own, and I often worry that I’m going to mess it up. Having two speed knobs isn’t ideal, though I rarely use the low-speed (under 1/30 sec) one. But the knobs are small, and in the case of the “high speed” one, I have to remember that I can only easily rotate in one direction vs. the omnidirectional modern knobs. Having to remember to manually reset the film counter is annoying, and I’ve bumped the knob a few times, meaning the exposure count isn’t always accurate. But these are common features of a 1950s rangefinder, especially one that was less expensive than Leicas.
But do I want to find another interchangeable lens rangefinder, maybe (gasp!) upgrade to a Leica? Right now, no. This is about as much of this style of rangefinder as I want to go for. While the idea of having a choice of lenses is intriguing, I know it’s not an SLR, where whatever focal length lens you choose, you will see its worldview accurately through a rangefinder. The world of rangefinder lenses is more constricted, mostly limited to whatever frame lines are in the viewfinder,4 which in the case of the YF is 50mm (which is the lens I have), 100mm, and 35mm (which is the total view in the finder.) And rangefinder lenses are expensive. While Leica Thread Mount lenses are cheaper than Leica M series ones, they pale in comparison to what I could find for my Minolta SR bodies. I could find a LTM 100mm lens for a reasonable price, but would I even use that focal length? No, 35mm would be my choice, and I don’t think I’ve seen one in decent shape for less than $200. So I’m going to pass on that for now. So the whole idea of lens interchangeability is more a liability than an asset. At least with a fixed-lens rangefinder, there’s no choice, so I remain happy with what’s on there.
So now I’m up to three rangefinders. When both the Minolta Hi-Matic 7s and Olympus 35RD left the stable earlier last year, I thought I might be done with them for a bit, as finally SLRs became “the” camera for me. But no, I still like rangefinders. They are great walk around and bike around cameras. And because I don’t “see” through the lens like I would with an SLR, using colored filters for black and white film is easier–I don’t have to worry about not catching everything when looking through a yellow or especially a red filter. As such, my traditional rangefinders do the bulk of my black-and-white photography.
And I’m happy that there is variety amongst the three rangefinders, it’s not like the same camera thrice. With my Canonet QL 17 G-III I have a fairly compact fixed-lens machine with shutter priority and manual override. The “oh yeah, it’s a rangefinder” Olympus XA is compact and features aperture priority. And when I want the big old camera feeling with full manual control, I’ll reach for the Yashica.
- My Ricohflex Dia is also completely manual, but it’s medium format, using 120 roll film. ↩︎
- And the tiny screws that hold the meter to the adjustable clip have already gone AWOL once. Thankfully Reflx Lab provided spares, but now I know to check the tightness occasionally. ↩︎
- Camera companies behind the Iron Curtain still clung to this design, though. ↩︎
- Sure, you can get around it with a separate viewfinder that goes into the accessory shoe, but then you lose the whole rangefinder focusing. And telephoto lenses longer than 135mm are just problematic on rangefinders. ↩︎
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