Yashica M

[John Farrell]

Here in the south of New Zealand, interesting cameras at an affordable price are becoming rare - charity and second-hand shops have none.

I picked up this yashica on our local auction site, Trademe.



The camera has an unusual rewind lever



This particular example has a couple of problems - the wind lock doesn't work, so continuous winding is possible, without shutter release; and the rewind button does not disengage the film wind sprocket.

[daveh]

I might have said elsewhere that it seems here (Wirral, UK) that most of the charity shops seem to send cameras and photo equipment to a their central depots from where they are sold on ebay.

Will you be able to fix it, John?

Somewhere I have an old Yashica cine camera knocking around. It's probably similar vintage to your M: there are certainly design similarities.

[philbirch]

Mar 6, 2014 17:57:31 GMT -5 daveh said:

...
Somewhere I have an old Yashica cine camera knocking around. It's probably similar vintage to your M: there are certainly design similarities.

A Yashica C perchance?? 1961 (the M being 1960)

[John Farrell]

Daveh - there don't even seem to be uninteresting cameras about; it's rare to find even basic plastic point and shoots now.
I'll certainly have a go at fixing it. I'll photograph the exercise and post it on here.

John.

[daveh]

John,

We do still get the occasional "point and shoot", but often these seem 'overpriced'. I think most stuff sold at charity shops has been a bit more 'realistically' priced of late. There is a market near us which has a stall with all sorts of things photographic, but everything was always well overpriced so I don't bother even checking now. The big second-hand dealers (which are now not the camera shops but second-hand everything shops) have the best deals. There is a good camera shop in Chester, but their second hand stuff is generally a fair bit more than it could be obtained for from elsewhere.

Phil, a U-Matic, which would also seem to date from 1961. I'm always surprised how little information is available about some cameras, and even some marques. It took me a while fighting through the ebay sales and forum posts to find anyone willing to give a date other than "1960s cine camera".

[philbirch]

I know the model. It does look like the C which is why I mentioned it. I think Yashica could have taken Sony to court in the late 60's for copying the name to use on a video recorder. Think thats far fetched? Seat (cars) made JVC change their Super VHS logo because it was 'similar' to the Seat S logo. As if anyone would mix the two up.

[John Farrell]

Well, I finally got one of those round things (a roundtuit), and fixed the Yashica M.

I removed the bottom plate - 2 screws, and the rewind handle. The plate could only be turned to expose the workings, as part of the rewind mechanism is tight on the shaft.



The gear on the top left drives the film sprocket. It presses in to rewind, and when released it winds the film. It was gummed up with dried lubricant, not quite at the rewind position. A few drops of solvent freed it, and the rewind now works.

The wind lock still wasn't working, so the top plate of the camera came off - 3 screws, and the pin faced screw in the centre of the wind lever. Luckily this was only finger tight, and easy to remove.



The wind lock is the black lever seen just above the corner of the camera. This, too, was gummed up. A little more solvent, then a drop of oil got it moving, and working correctly.



One of the front surfaced mirrors in the rangefinder was loose. I glued it back with a couple of drops of contact adhesive.

[daveh]

John, thanks for the update. Photos bring the process to life - and how much better now we have digital systems for transferring the information.

[philbirch]

You did a good job there. Thanks for sharing.