NickTrop
Veteran
Cameras (analog, film) come in three flavors.
1. Shutter priority (most all fixed lens RFs)
2. Aperture priority (Just the Electros and one of the Minolta RFs)
3. Manual
Often I hear on threads people dislike the Electros because "there's no manual control". Here's what I pose to you.
Your "manual camera" - if it has a coupled built-in light meter, for all intents and purposes, is really a shutter priority camera.
Do you really, really ever futz with the shutter speed dial rotating it in its position, probably right next to the film advance, to match the shutter speed to a particular aperture you want to shoot?
I'll answer for you - no, you never do. It's possible, but it's slow, cumbersome, awkward. Such cameras - most cameras, simply weren't designed to work this way. (It's actually less cumbersome to +/- the film speed setting when you want an extra stop or stop down!)
No - you set the shutter speed and rotate the aperture on the lens. 99.99-100% of the time. Therefore, your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera because that's how you use it. And because it's really a "shutter priority" camera - and this includes Leicas, every time you shoot you make a compromise. You set the shutter speed to - whatever works for the light, and match the aperture to that setting. Therefore every picture you take is probably a compromise that effects your final image quality. The aperture indicator floats around, and "rounds up or down" and is a "surprise" in the end. You've lost creative control of the most important aspect of how the lens will paint the image. Sure, you can rotate the shutter speed setting - forget it if you try and your subjects are human or your trying to capture the "decisive moment". That happened a minute ago before you - through trial and error, having to pull your eye away from the camera to reset the shutter setting so it gives you the aperture you want.
Like that candid? Want to blur the background more? Wish you could have shot it at f4 instead of f5.6 but you would have missed the shot if you pulled the camera away from your eye to increase the shutter speed. Forget the shot. So you "accept" f5.6 and its higher DOF.
Just one example.
Your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera. Hate to break it to you.
In conclusion, taking all things into consideration, the Yashica Electro series is the best 35mm film camera ever made. Only the Electro series by Yashica give you 100% creative control over most images. You set the aperture on the lens barrel. It's the aperture and the apeture f-stop alone that determines how the lens paints the image - its DOF, its bokeh. Shutter speed does not really matter for 90% of shooting situations that RFs excel at and were designed for. Your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera. This includes SLRs and modern Leicas. You set Yashica or any aperture, which determines the aesthetic qualities of the image, not shutter speed, and it sets the typically unimportant shutter speed - stepless, in "infinate" intervals. There are no shutter "stops", so in conjunction with its excellent metering capabilities , it renders "perfectly" exposed images. It lighing calls for a shutter speed of 1/78 a second - you got it. Perfect. Not 1/60, not 1/125 like your "shutter priority" manual camera or your shutter priority camera. You set aperture and shoot instantly, with a silent shutter thats right up there with Leicas and Hexars.
Combine this with a parrallax-corrected viewfinder, a lens that might not beat a Cron in a lens test, but for all intents and purposes is just as good, an amazing ability to meter an shoot at shutter speeds over 30 seconds for low light still life and low light effects photography if the camera is tripod-mounted that is unique and unmatched in any other camera.
The Electros are the best cameras ever made because they are the only "pure" aperture priority cameras, as such give the photographer instant control over what matters most - the aperture setting, in conjunction with a stepless shutter. Your "manual camera" is inferiour to this system because it's really a shutter priority camera.
Oh - and "PS", only the Lynx series - with both aperture and shutter speed on the actual lens barrel, it the true "all manual" camera that I'm aware of... But that's a post for another day.
1. Shutter priority (most all fixed lens RFs)
2. Aperture priority (Just the Electros and one of the Minolta RFs)
3. Manual
Often I hear on threads people dislike the Electros because "there's no manual control". Here's what I pose to you.
Your "manual camera" - if it has a coupled built-in light meter, for all intents and purposes, is really a shutter priority camera.
Do you really, really ever futz with the shutter speed dial rotating it in its position, probably right next to the film advance, to match the shutter speed to a particular aperture you want to shoot?
I'll answer for you - no, you never do. It's possible, but it's slow, cumbersome, awkward. Such cameras - most cameras, simply weren't designed to work this way. (It's actually less cumbersome to +/- the film speed setting when you want an extra stop or stop down!)
No - you set the shutter speed and rotate the aperture on the lens. 99.99-100% of the time. Therefore, your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera because that's how you use it. And because it's really a "shutter priority" camera - and this includes Leicas, every time you shoot you make a compromise. You set the shutter speed to - whatever works for the light, and match the aperture to that setting. Therefore every picture you take is probably a compromise that effects your final image quality. The aperture indicator floats around, and "rounds up or down" and is a "surprise" in the end. You've lost creative control of the most important aspect of how the lens will paint the image. Sure, you can rotate the shutter speed setting - forget it if you try and your subjects are human or your trying to capture the "decisive moment". That happened a minute ago before you - through trial and error, having to pull your eye away from the camera to reset the shutter setting so it gives you the aperture you want.
Like that candid? Want to blur the background more? Wish you could have shot it at f4 instead of f5.6 but you would have missed the shot if you pulled the camera away from your eye to increase the shutter speed. Forget the shot. So you "accept" f5.6 and its higher DOF.
Just one example.
Your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera. Hate to break it to you.
In conclusion, taking all things into consideration, the Yashica Electro series is the best 35mm film camera ever made. Only the Electro series by Yashica give you 100% creative control over most images. You set the aperture on the lens barrel. It's the aperture and the apeture f-stop alone that determines how the lens paints the image - its DOF, its bokeh. Shutter speed does not really matter for 90% of shooting situations that RFs excel at and were designed for. Your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera. This includes SLRs and modern Leicas. You set Yashica or any aperture, which determines the aesthetic qualities of the image, not shutter speed, and it sets the typically unimportant shutter speed - stepless, in "infinate" intervals. There are no shutter "stops", so in conjunction with its excellent metering capabilities , it renders "perfectly" exposed images. It lighing calls for a shutter speed of 1/78 a second - you got it. Perfect. Not 1/60, not 1/125 like your "shutter priority" manual camera or your shutter priority camera. You set aperture and shoot instantly, with a silent shutter thats right up there with Leicas and Hexars.
Combine this with a parrallax-corrected viewfinder, a lens that might not beat a Cron in a lens test, but for all intents and purposes is just as good, an amazing ability to meter an shoot at shutter speeds over 30 seconds for low light still life and low light effects photography if the camera is tripod-mounted that is unique and unmatched in any other camera.
The Electros are the best cameras ever made because they are the only "pure" aperture priority cameras, as such give the photographer instant control over what matters most - the aperture setting, in conjunction with a stepless shutter. Your "manual camera" is inferiour to this system because it's really a shutter priority camera.
Oh - and "PS", only the Lynx series - with both aperture and shutter speed on the actual lens barrel, it the true "all manual" camera that I'm aware of... But that's a post for another day.
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