Yashica Minister What Say You All?

R

rpinchbeck

Guest
For what ever reason, possibly insanity, I got a Yashica Minister, the first model not a II or a D.

Can anyone shed some light on these? Good lens? The way one sets the shutter and aperture via the EV ring is a bit funky.

The aperture and shutter rings are stiff so I'm probably going in for a cleaing session.

Cheers,

Russ Pinchbeck
 
I just got one at a yardsale last weekend. A Minister-D. Looks to be in pretty good shape.

I popped in a hearing aid battery and a shim today, and have started running a roll of film in it to see how's the shutter/lens. The meter seemed on the button when compared to my SLR.

Something about rangefinders grab my soul. I wore out one Canonet Giii 1.7 that I bought new, and replaced it with a refurb. I've picked up a few others, but this Yashica for $10 has me tickled and hoping it's a good camera.

Later. :D
 
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I've just gotten ahold of a mint condition Yashica Minister D. I running the first roll through it now, so I cannot speak about results yet. Based in web infor the minister series has either a 5 element or a 4 element (tessar-type) lens. So results should be good, but not spectacular like the electro! BTWsome web information also says that this camera can accept the 625a 1.5 volt battery. However, when I tried this, the meter was consistently too high compared to my gossen, so stick with the 1.35 volt batteries.
 
Here's a few images from mine. I scanned them and massaged them in Irfanview. Brought up the gamma scale to make colors pop, cropped, resized and sharpened. Nothing else.

Lion's Teeth
LionsTeeth.jpg


Shade Garden
shadegarden.jpg


Flamingo Solo
FlamingoSolo.jpg
 
Rey,

I'd say OK to good at this point. I just had it processed at a good quality 1 hour place, and scanned it with a $49 scanner. so...

The print's looked good, but the scans lost alot and so it needed some digital massaging.

I figure it to be good enough to be my standing-in-a-canoe camera.
 
Well, that's a good enough recommendation for me. I hope to finish this roll by the end of the month. I've gotten over ambitious and have too many rolls started in different cameras such that I can't seem to ever finish one.
 
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