Yashicamat Variations Open Thread A Tribute !

[F16SUNSHINE]

There are Quite a few Yashicamat variations.
Please contribute your thoughts and pics in this thread with your Yashicamat.
Yesterday I put the first Roll through one I recently acquired.
It has the slightly elusive German made Lumuxar f3.5/80mm lens that came with some cameras before the Yashinon.
I have read that the Lumuxar is a Tessar and nearly identical to the Yashinon.
One difference and it's a biggy is the aperture system has 10 blades (Yashinon 5 blades).
Here are some samples from that roll. I will add more later. Also a couple quick pics taken with my iPhone.
These pics are nothing special. Good enough to kick off the thread until I can shoot another roll.
Color samples next week.

Tmax400@400 in Tmax developer. My developer was nearly spent. There is less sharpness and more grain than usual.


Round Iris here set to f5.6


As with the Yashinon. The Lumuxar is quite prone to flare.


f5 or so nice and crisp on focus. Sorry this is a really poor example (cute or not).


3D/Bokey example. I have this same shot taken with my Planar Rolleiflex. The Lumuxar falls off much less surprisingly. Bokey is nice in the background oof area. A bit swirly up front.


Handled backlight with a passing (just) grade. Flarey!!


Close in and wide open it's fantastic!

Looks a bit de-centered what do you guys think. Looking left to right at the bottom.

[Orio]

Great pics and impressive 3D, Andy.

[F16SUNSHINE]

Thank you Orio. You are too kind.
I am really starting to like the tessar scheme lenses for medium format. Nice light weight and do quite well in the center.
The Portrait is as sharp as one might ever want.

[luisalegria]

That developer wasn't spent, it looks just right to me.

Great results, and excellent scanning !

What scanner are you using ?

Were you using a hood ? Thats almost a requirement for these things really.

I find the Rollei hoods fit very well on the Yashicas btw. You can also still get a new bayonet adapter to mount standard hoods, filters, etc -

http://camerafilters.com/pages/conversion.aspx

This may be a better option than the classic hood+filter. Less fiddly.

[cooltouch]

I agree, very nice photos, Andy.

Back in the 80s, I bought a new Yashica Mat 124G. I shot quite a bit of B&W and color slides with mine, and I've posted a number of the pics here that I took with it. But I'll post 'em again, if y'all don't mind.

Fishing boats, Morro Bay, California, circa 1984. YM 124G, Tri-X


Warbirds -- P-51 Mustang and Hawker Sea Fury, circa 1984. YM 124G, Tri-X




Life Guard Station, Southern California, circa 1985. YM 124G, Fujichrome 100

The Queen Mary Hotel, Long Beach, also circa 1985. YM 124G, Fujichrome 100


I sold my 124G about six years later because I bought a Rolleiflex and figured I didn't need it anymore. And then, about 15 years later, I sold the Rolleiflex -- I dunno why, no good reason. So about a year ago, I bought another Yashica Mat. This time it was a plain 124. No G. I've read repeadedly that the only difference between the two cameras is that the G has gold-plated contacts for the battery. Well, if you look at the two cameras, that is obviously not true. The G is all black with chrome and gold plastic looking lettering across the front, whereas the 124 has a plainer metal look to it. So there are cosmetic differences as well. I decided to get a 124 because to me it looked to be more sturdy than the G. And I wanted a 124 because I wanted to have the capability of shooting 220 if the situation arose.

The "regular" Mat 124:


The Mat 124 G:


As for image quality -- I don't really see much difference between the two cameras. Both have Yashinon lenses, but I'm wondering if the G's coating might be a little better?

I haven't really noticed a problem with flare with either of my cameras. But maybe I should give them a close look, I dunno.

Duckpond, Cypress tree roots? I think they're cypress. They remind me of small gnomes, guarding the trees. January, 2010. YM 124, Tri-X Professional 400TX


Harleys on the Strand, Galveston Texas. January 2010. YM 124 Tri-X Professional 400TX.



Civil War re-enactment muskets and rifles, January 2011. Tri-X Professional 400TX.



I have found the meters on both my 124G and my 124 to be quite accurate, and I've used them for both slide and print film. However, I still prefer to use my hand-held Gossen meter because I can do incident readings and be more selective about the areas that I do and don't want metered.

I am just really very fond of my Mat 124. It is capable of delivering spectacular pics in a wide variety of situations -- but then you folks know this because so many great photos have been displayed by Mat users here.

[gary2881]

I bought a Yashica LM this year because I wanted a small lite 6X6. KEH had this one for $65, because the meter didn't work. If you lift the little meter door on the front, the meter works just fine.javascript:emoticon('') It has a Yashikor triplet lens. It is very sharp in kind of a raw way, but still very nice.











Gary

[F16SUNSHINE]

Thank you Michael Those are all great!

Gary super cool. I have never seen that model with the flip up meter cover

Luis thank you for your comments. This roll I actually had to develop an extra 2 min.
The exposures look good so I think that it worked. I do see more grain "clumping" on the negs than usual.
I mix T-max developer 1:4 in a half gallon and reuse it. The first 10 rolls are at normal times. The next 5 rolls after that I add 10% to the times and at 15 start with a fresh mix.
This was roll number 22
Since the move I have yet to receive all my things so I have to make do. I have way overused this batch. A testament to how well T-max developer can keep going.
My Scanner is an Epson V700. Tmax dries very flat and is a pleasure to scan.
As for a shade. This time I used my hand as I could. The same box with the developer has my loose odds and ends.
I use a bay1 to 46mm so that I can use my old Contax G series hood and filters that I kept when the camera system was sold.
Works great and takes a nice round 55mm cap on the hood when idle.

[cooltouch]

On the topic of developing and digitizing, I think I should probably mention the differences in my photos above.

All of my B&W photos, except the last two of the old muskets, were developed with Kodak D76 full strength, where I reused it, increasing the developing times a bit as I went along. This actually worked very well. For the bottom two, I decided to try the one-shot method, mixing the D76 1:1. The Kodak literature mentioned that a 1:1 one-shot approach would add some contrast but at the expense of grain, that is the grain would be more obvious. It doesn't show so much in those photos, but in a few others I took the grain is noticeably more pronounced. I think I prefer doing things the full-strength way.

As for digitizing, I scanned the warbirds with my old Epson 3170 at 3200 ppi, and everything else was with my Epson 4990 at either 2400 ppi or 3200 ppi. Varying amounts of PP were done to the images, ranging from a moderate amount to almost none. Typically I will bump up the contrast slightly and see if any of the sharpness routines improves an image. I've found that if an image is well-focused, sharpness enhancements often add very little besides noise. For PP, I use either Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Even though PS costs a LOT more, I actually prefer PSP.

[Bogie]