Vintage ‘postcard’ views of this historic Episcopal church on Florida’s Atlantic coast.
Camera: Yashica L AF 35mm compact w/ 35mm f3.5 lens
Film: Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-TRA 400
Location: Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, Florida
Thanks for taking a peek!
Chris
A fun little point and shoot camera from Yashica-Kyocera (1986). This lovely camera was kindly donated to us from a blogger friend and photographer who lives in Japan. She tests cameras that strike her fancy and often processes her film at home. We think her test shots are extremely interesting – and always well composed too. You can find her at https://cameragocamera.wordpress.com/
Field test v1.0 was done in Japan.
She typically hunts around in second hand shops and picks up cameras for well under $10 (I think this one was only $3).
The Yashica gets a fresh roll of Fujicolor Superia X-TRA 400 and a new finger strap (in almost matching red).
This Yashica uses a 32mm f3.5 lens. The camera features a simple drop and go (well almost) film loading. It is a DX coded camera so it sets the ASA (sorry, old school). It produced 26 exposures from a 24 exposure roll.
Pull the film leader to mid point on the orange line and between the white marks.
The real test – can this inexpensive Yashica L AF deliver the same image quality as its highly regarded cousins – the Yashica T3 Super with Zeiss T* 35mm f2.8 lens or the more closely related Yashica T AF?
The T3 – often sells for over $200 on eBay. The L AF – well under $20!
Yashica T AF. Yashica’s first in the T* Series of cameras (1985). Probably the most closely related to the L AF.
I won’t post all 26 images here. I will pick a broad representation of the photographic challenges that I threw at the Yashica L AF.
First image overall – strong back lighting. A challenge for any simple AE camera. First sign of a red spot (far left).
These next two images were focused at infinity. Strong mid day lighting so deep shadows. The Fujicolor rocks some nice vivid colors and contrast!
First real test of the auto-focus and AE in dim lighting below. It did well considering the strong sunlight in the background.
I know right – crazy dark blue sky! No filters, just Superia X-TRA 400 and a contrasty lens.
Nice detail. Sharp focus too on this sign below. The Yashica employs center weighted metering. Most AE cameras would be thrown off by the bright sky.
Tough AE situation for a simple point and shoot (deep shade below). Post production would help but I like it as it is.
Back in the bright Florida sun!
Day 2 below at home. I was about 3 feet from the carp. Looks good.
The attack of the red bar! Not sure the why of it.
The AE handled this situation well – I blocked out the sun with the palm tree which allowed the Yashica to get a good reading on the building.
As I said at the top. All 26 images were excellent with about 4 experiencing the mystery red spots and bars. I’m thinking that the red marks are from a processing error – it’s way too random to be a light leak. No post production on any of these images. They’re presented just as they were scanned by the processing lab. Maybe the CD will be even sharper.
We’re impressed! The camera has a solid feel – it has some weight and is actually as big as our Fujifilm FinePix S9900W.
So does this inexpensive Yashica L AF beat the Yashica T* Series? Don’t know yet – now all we need is someone to donate a T3 or T4 to test it!!! ^.^
For the money, if you can find a decent Yashica L AF and want a great point and shoot 35mm camera that produces better than expected images – the L AF more than delivers and at a price that won’t break the bank!
Camera(s): Yashica L AF Date, Fujifilm FinePix S9900W and Samsung Galaxy S4
Final shout out goes to the City of Fernandina Beach, Florida! Thanks for never messing with the Historic District – it looks the same (for the most part) as it did 120 years ago!
Many thanks for your visit! Comments – please do. Donating a T3 or T4? – email us ASAP!
Chris & Carol
St. Peters Episcopal Cemetery – Amelia Island, Florida. 2.2.2017
Camera: Samsung Galaxy S4
Centre Street, Amelia Island.
The Palace Saloon – Florida’s oldest bar. It opened in the late 1800s and was once the watering hole for the Carnegies (who had a mansion on nearby Cumberland Island) and the Rockefellers. It was the last American tavern to close during Prohibition! Still a favorite spot with locals and tourists alike.
Pirate Pete guards the entrance – only allowing thirsty people with money to enter.
Thanks for stopping by!
Chris
We just got our first roll of film from our new Fujica processed with ‘The Darkroom’. They scanned the 6×9 negatives and zipped them to us. We couldn’t be any more pleased with the results.
As a refresher – this is the 1978 version of Fuji Photo Film’s GW690 medium format film camera. It is the last model to to be called ‘Fujica’. It looks great in this image and it is in very nice condition, but well worn from the thousands of rolls and exposures taken. It will settle in to a more quiet life with us as we can’t afford to buy and have processed 120 film and only get 8 exposures per roll. But we are super happy with it. Super sharp Fujinon 90mm lens transfers the image nicely to the 6×9 negative.
By the way… all of the images presented are direct scans from the negatives. No post production on our part – no crops or other messing with the images. Some I missed the correct exposure by a stop or two with my guesses. I was mostly shooting at 1/250 with 100 film at around f8 to f11. Neopan Acros is very forgiving.
As you can see, we’ve presented 6 exposures vice 8… 1 other was a duplicate and exposure 8 wasn’t on the roll! I think I may have wound past the first frame. We believe the level of detail and contrast of the Fujinon lens is superb. Did we mention that we’re big fans of Fuji’s Acros? We also love the 6×9 format too. I would say that I was surprised at the shallow depth-of-field in the truck image – I focused on the ‘GMC’ logo and as you may be able to see, I missed spot on focus.
All of the images were taken along Centre Street, downtown historic district, Fernandina Beach – Amelia Island, Florida. The post office building is ca. 1911. The clock tower is ca. 1891. The ‘Pineapple Patch’ building is ca. 1880s. You get the point – for the U.S. it’s kinda old – for most of the rest of the world they’re kinda new. It’s all relative. ^.^
Thanks for your visit!
Chris and Carol
Amelia Island’s historic courthouse along Centre Street, Fernandina Beach, Florida. Completed in 1891. It still serves as a county government building and was fully restored in 2002.
We haven’t had the opportunity to focus our attention on the Pentamatic lately. Carol is still working and I’m the retired one. I keep the home business rolling in our studios and lately most of my free time has been spent “rescuing vintage film cameras” – cameras that most people would probably throw away rather than restoring them. We just can’t bring ourselves to do that. Now let me be clear, restoring old cameras is as close to the most crazy thing one can do with their spare time. The amount of hours spent stripping old paint, chasing away rust and corrosion, cleaning lenses and restoring leather cases never equals a smart return on the hours and dollars spent. But we love re-imagining a 60 year old camera into a useful machine again and at the same time make it a work of art.
Anyway, we hope to be able to showcase one of our TLR restorations soon here in on blog. In the meantime, I ran across a few forgotten images of one of our Pentamatics today and I thought I would share them. They haven’t been posted elsewhere – when I first downloaded them I wasn’t sure that I liked them so they sat and sat. Today (after a few tweaks) here they are.
Both images were taken on the same day in our ca. 1911 post office building here in town. The one hundred year old windowsill provided a nice setting for the modern lines of the 1960 Yashica. Strong light flooded the space via the very dirty windows which in turn diffused the light nicely. I reflected some light back at the Yashica via a white shirt I was wearing. The bottom image is the same camera placed on the floor about 10 feet away from the windows. I liked the color and grain of the wood (fir or southern yellow pine) and again the 100 year old wood provided a nice contrast to the Pentamatic.
The Pentamatic remains one of the most invisible of Yashica’s SLRs. I’m drawn to it because of its rather unique styling – a clean pentaprism design, front mounted shutter release button and of course its crazy big lenses.
Thanks for your visit and please feel free to share your comments with us.
Chris & Carol ^.^
Atlantic waves headed for our Amelia Island shores. Mid day sun turns the clear water into foaming brilliance. Fujifilm XP100.
Wishing for the return of summer on this winter day. ^.^
Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris 