Changes: Yashica Electro 35

Revision as of 22:12, 9 October 2006

Yashica Electro 35

Introduction

In 1966 Yashica introduced the Electro 35. It was the first of a very succesfull line of cameras. All of them are 35mm rangefinder cameras with fixed Yashinon lenses. The rangefinder is coupled to the focusing ring and the viewfinder is parallax corrected. Very nice for a 1960's rangefinder camera. The Electros use aperture priority exposure with a stepless (!) automatic shutter with speeds from 30s to 1/500s. Metering is done by half depressing the shutter button.

Underexposure (i.e. shutterspeed at the chosen aperture lower than 1/30s) is indicated in the viewfinder by an orange arrow pointing left and an orange light on top of the camera. Similarly, a required shutterspeed faster than 1/500s is indicated by a right pointing arrow and a red control light on the top. Both situations can be solved (most of the times) by changing the aperture. The shutter will fire even when overexposed. With the underexposed indication on, the photographer may consider using a tripod.

Specifications

Copal electronic blade shutter with flash sync at all speeds. The sync contact is placed on the left side of the camera, probably for esthetical reasons. The GSN and GTN have a hotshoe flashcontact in the accessory shoe. Yashinon 1.7 45mm lens with 55mm filter thread. On later models, the lens is called color Yashinon. The closest focusing distance is 0.8m. The camera has three exposure modes: auto, B and flash. It has a ISO/ASA range of 25 to 1000. Inside the camera, there's a DIN/ASA conversion table telling you this correspond to a range of DIN 15 to 31.

Images

An Electro 35 GS

Variations and developments

1966 original Yashica Electro 35

1968 Yashica Electro 35 G

1969 Yashica Electro 35 GT

1970 Yashica Electro 35 GS

1973 Yashica Electro 35 GTN, GSN and GL

???? Yashica Electro 35 GX

???? Yashica Electro 35 CC

???? Yashica Electro 35 FC

Letters indicate: G gold contact points in electrical parts

N hotshoe

S (no battery test light, combined shutterdoor release and rewind crank)

T black body

Links

The Yashica Guy's chronology
Karen Nakamura's overview at Photoethnography
James Surprenant's summary
Matt Denton's overview
Yann L'hostis' summary (in French, includes shutter sound sample)
Article by M. Feuerbacher
Adam Brown's New Used Yashica Electro GSN Review
Lionel's Yashica Electro 35 GSN overview in french at 35mm-compact.com

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 == Introduction ==
-In 1966 [[Yashica]] introduced the ''Electro 35''. It was the first of a very succesfull line of cameras. All of them are 35mm [[rangefinder]] cameras with fixed Yashinon lenses. The rangefinder is coupled to the focusing ring and the viewfinder is [[parallax]] corrected. Very nice for a 1960's rangefinder camera. The Electros use [[aperture priority]] exposure with a stepless (!) automatic shutter with speeds from 30s to 1/500s. Metering is done by half depressing the shutter button.
+In 1966 [[Yashica]] introduced the ''Electro 35''. It was the first of a very succesfull line of cameras. All of them are 35mm [[rangefinder camera]]s with fixed Yashinon lenses. The rangefinder is coupled to the focusing ring and the viewfinder is [[parallax]] corrected. Very nice for a 1960's rangefinder camera. The Electros use [[aperture priority]] exposure with a stepless (!) automatic shutter with speeds from 30s to 1/500s. Metering is done by half depressing the shutter button.
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