Lazyday
07-29-2005, 07:21 AM
Im Looking at buying a vintage SLR camera. So far the best looking ones I found is the Yashica TL Electro-X. I've done a little research into them and it seems that they are good cameras. However the prices I've seen on them so far seem to be a little high. The one I'm looking at right now is about 75$ with a super telephoto lens something around .-4000mm. Has anyone ever used an Yashica 35mm SLR before? If so how are they.
another view
07-29-2005, 01:10 PM
I don't know much about Yashica, but they were supposed to be good cameras. They haven't made 35mm SLR's for a long time though. $75 sounds pretty fair for a camera body with a normal lens (not sure what this one is). There are a lot of older mechanical cameras out there that you could probably find for that price or less. Olympus, Pentax, Nikon and Canon made good ones too.
Make sure everything works on it and that there aren't any light leaks (only way to test this is by shooting a roll of film). If it's at a store, maybe they'll give you a 30 day warranty or something. Repairs will likely cost more than the camera is worth.
Also, if it has a built in lightmeter, make sure that the battery it takes is still available. A lot of those cameras used Mercury batteries which aren't available in the US anymore for environmental reasons. There are replacements for those, but they can be expensive, not have the right voltage which will give you inaccurate readings or have a really short life. Good to know what you're getting into up front.
Lazyday
07-29-2005, 03:19 PM
Thank you. I've made sure of the batteries are still available, of course im not sure about light leaks since its on ebay but he says hes repaired the foam on the doors.