Yashica 35 GT - metering issue?

immutability

immutability

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Hello everyone!

I'm a bit new to these forums, and I'm so lucky to find them! I have borrowed this beautiful Yashica Electro 35 GT from my father, who's no longer using it. I think he bought it in late 70s or early 80s, but it wasn't used much during the past 10+ years (was actually used once or twice during that time). But it is in excellent condition so I bought a B&W film to play with it a little (I already have the equipment to develop the film and photos at home too) ;)

To get to the point, I'm afraid there must be some exposure metering issue or something, and I'd really appreciate any ideas or help from all of you more familiar with this camera.

The symptoms:
  • In low light, when the orange "slow" lamp goes on, the shutter seems to behave as if it was in bulb mode. That's what I could see when I was playing with the camera without a film inside. The shutter remains open for as long as you hold the release.
  • I've tried this with self-timer too, to see what will happen, and in this case, the shutter was very fast even if the orange lamp was on while pressing the release. This was at f/4 and with ISO 200 film inside in a room where my digital camera would use almost a second (0.8 sec)
  • I've also tried this with an extreme aperture setting (f/16) in the same room, but again, and looked straight into the lens (I already have the film inside) and again, it was extremely fast.
More information - things that I already thought of, but now I think that they're probably not the cause:
  • Setting the aperture apparently works - the blades move (I could see that with camera open) and also it changes how camera reacts to light, for example when the red lamp goes on and you go to f/11 or f/16 and then half-press the shutter release, the red lamp will not light up. Same is true for orange lamp.
  • Battery - there is still the original battery, which might be years old, but no leaks. I read that without battery the shutter speed would be locked to 1/500s, so I even thought this might be it, but the green battery check lamp comes up, and when I measured the voltage I got 5.83 V (without any load of course, I don't know how these mercury batteries behave when they're old?)
Questions (just one actually):
  • In the small window behind which the exposure metering thing is hidden (to the left of the lens when you look at the camera) there seem to be 2 blades forming a small diamond-shaped window. The look like if they've been made movable, but the window size is constant regardless of lens aperture. Is this supposed to be like this, or is it supposed to be moving and change amount of light getting through to the sensor?
I know this is a bit too long, but I hope someone will be able to help, or at least explain... Thank you for any help in advance!

Rado
 
Thank you guys for your responses!

greyhoundman said:
The meter blades only move when you set the ISO.

Sounds like the pad of death needs to be replaced.
Click to expand...
Thanks! Now that I've tried this I see the blades are OK. I've been using ISO dial for exposure compensation but never thought of the link between it and the blades. :)

physiognomy said:
Welcome to RFF Rado!

Here is a link to some repair info... People here like g'man are a wealth of knowledge if you get stuck.

http://www.yashica-guy.com/document/repair.html

Peter
Click to expand...
Thanks Peter, I've been to Yashica Guy's website before but missed the repair guide somehow... Now I at least now what the "pad of death" that greyhoundman talked about is. :)

The shutter release and advance lever action is smooth though, so I'm not sure if it's that? I also don't know if I can get someone to service it here... I'll have to check, or try it myself in the worst case... :( I wouldn't want to lose this camera. I'll try to finish and develop the film this week, so I'll also see what the results are.

Rado
 
OK, after reading Yashica Guy's repair guide on how to replace the "pad of death" I lost all confidence in my ability to do it and put the camera back together... I think I've read somewhere that there is someone still doing Yashica repair near Atlanta, GA? I'm afraid of the shipping costs etc (being located in the middle of Europe) but still... if they would be able to fix it, I think it could be worth a try. Do you have a contact to this guy (or anyone alse capable of properly fixing a Yashica camera)?

Here are some more symptoms while I was playing more with the camera:
  • While slowly moving the film advance lever, there were no loud clanks (described as one of symptoms of pad of death going away) just 2-3 silend clicks
  • But a more weird thing - and I don't know if it's supposed to be doing this (I don't think so) - at f/1.7 in bulb or flash mode, the orange lamp always lights up! Even under 300W halogen lamp - conditions where in Auto mode the red lamp would light up instead. So I'd say that there's definitely something broken :( I've tried to take a shot in flash mode (with orange lamp on, looking into the lens) and it behaved like bulb - open all the time I was holding the shutter release.
Thank you guys for your help again!

Rado
 
Rado:

The former Yashica employee and current repairman here in the Atlanta are is Mark Hama www.Markhama.com. He did a 35 GS for me two weeks ago and it functions as if new. My first roll of Kodak 400 UC through it had every image spot on. He charged me $95 USD which included a full CLA, replacing the light seals, the filter ring and the battery compartment. For another $10 I got one of his stock of batteries for it. It's a little high, I know, but I believe it performs almost on par with my Contax G2 with its Leitz glass. Hope this helps.
 
Rado:

One more point, his turn around time to do all of what he did was 2 days! I sent it via priority mail on a Monday and it was back the same way that Thursday.
 
Thank you again guys! I know I'm a little late but I came home too late on Sunday, so I didn't have a chance to develop the film before today. Now that I see it, I'm 90% sure that the exposure remains fixed at 1/500s, except for those cases when the orange lamp goes up (then it behaves as bulb).

All interior shots are heavily underexposed or completely transparent (on the negative). Reaching the end of the film, I was trying to take all (outside) shots one stop from red lamp going on, and these seem to be exposed OK.

I also took a set of 3 outside test shots at f/16, f/11 and f/5.6 (at f/4 the red lamp would go on) and if the exposure would have been set correctly by the camera, these would all get same exposure. But they're not and the difference is clear.

So if I assume it's not a battery problem (voltage is over 5.6V and the battery-check lamp shines brightly) it must be the pad-of-death as was mentioned before, right?

So now I'll have to think about this a little... The repair price is not a big deal, but considering that the postage costs to the US and back would add another $50-$100... I really don't know. I might just keep it to remember the good old days and get a used SLR instead... but on the other hand I'd like to have it repaired... dillema! :)

Hmmmmm

I'll get back when I make the decision.

Rado
 
Hello again! It took me quite long to make the decision eh? :)

In the meantime, I bought a used Canon EOS SLR to play with on eBay, but still decided to have the Yashica repaired. I was able to find a guy who repairs all kinds of classical cameras in Czech Republic (my neighboring country) and he's familiar with Yashica Electro 35 pad-of-death issue. He's been very friendly and also offered to do other maintenance (cleanup, change of the insulating foam, etc) so I'm sending the Yashica to him tomorrow (postage costs about 1/10 to 1/5 than sending to the US).

I'll report how it went when it arrives back!

Thanks again for all your help,
Rado
 
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