scratches on yashica 124 g

[luplup7]

Hi all,

This is going to be my first post in this forum, so truely hello to you all.

I've recently bought a Yashica 124-g for 70 dollars, which i received today. I was not expecting something to be in mint condition considering the price, so as long as the camera worked that was alright. I checked everything and even the lightmeter is working.

The only thing is that there are some scratches on the lenses, both the viewing and taking lens. I am an experienced 35mm user and there were some scratches on my Zenith (helios lens) previously but it didn't affect the overall picture quality. Also there seems to be no mark of these scratches on the large viewfinder of the Yashica.

As I'm a beginner -literally- in 120 film format, i don't know if these scratches are going to affect the larger negative or not. I ll test them in the following week but for now i m out of films.

By scratches i don't mean very big marks on the lens. They are very tiny but there are a couple of them. They look like the ones that occur on your cell-phone glass after some time. -Hope I was clear on my explanation-

If anyone can help, it ll be really helpful.

Thanks.

 

[sreed2006]

A first recommendation is to use a hood when taking pictures. That will help keep the scratches from causing flare, and just make the quality of the pictures better anyway.

If the scratches are large enough to cause problems even with a hood, one recommendation I have read (I've never tried this myself) is to fill in the scratches with black ink. That recommendation is usually for really large scratches. If the scratches are small enough, do not worry about them.

Welcome aboard, and have fun with the 124G. It is a great camera.

 

[ray*j*gun]

I have not found that minor scratches on any lens have affected the images. In fact there was a thread here a while ago where members showed some horrible lens marks and the images were fine. Good luck with MF its the best IQ for the money with out question.

 

[luplup7]

Thanks a lot. well, i will try and see next week, if they affect or not. I hope they won't. I will look for that thread ray*j, again great thanks for your help.

 

[miragem5]

I have several TLRs and if you look very close all have some form of scratches normally through grit on lens while cleaning the front element , I always use a hood to cut down flare . as a previous poster stated they have to be very bad before they effect the image quality. As long as you can keep the light reflections off the lens you will be ok. The lens that will give trouble on the 124G is the rear taking lens which tends to get a haze on the inside over many years ,easy to remove and clean normally and makes a big improvement . With the back open set f-stop to 3.5 and speed to B, cock shutter and hold down shutter button and slide shutter lock over then view through the taking lens to see if there is any haze or fog on lens. ps Don't worry if you see the odd dust partical .

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I have an ancient pre-war Rolleiflex whose Tessar lens has a lot of scratches all over the front element. It is still extremely sharp. The lens has a lot of flare compared to modern lenses, but it is uncoated, so I suspect that the lack of coating is a bigger cause than the scratches. These were done with it:

 

[jwicaksana]

I have all kinds of scratches, even fungus and oil haze on my TLRs, and they're still sharp sharp sharp, I don't bother cleaning them for the fear of bleeding my fingers while handling them! Pardon the hyperbole 😛
Don't worry too much, you'll still be amazed at how much better it is compared to 35mm.

 

[farlymac]

In all my time of photography, after many cameras, I've only had two that scratches were the death nell of. One was pretty severe, looking like someone had sandpapered the front and rear elements. The other looked more like the result of too many shirt corner rubbings. But it was still somewhat usable, just extremely soft at times.

PF

 

[leica M2 fan]

I, too, would be surprised if the scratches had any affect on the pictures it produces. Maybe a little more flare especially in to the sun shots. In fact you might just like it so much you'll be very happy with them.

 

[luplup7]

thanks for all advises and comments. I will finish my first roll next week most likely and try to develop it by myself. I m not expecting any good images but this test roll will be really helpful for detecting any flare effects and to see overall image quality.

Hope i will be able to load it in the dark and develop correctly. Then i ll scan some images and post them here.

chris, nice portraits&high quality images.