The Traveling Yashica: Dave Wolanski – Delaware (USA)

I received the Yashica T5 and wasn’t able to shoot with it for several weeks due to some family matters and bitter cold and snow. I finally made the chance to shoot with it in the snow and the following day after the snow stopped using some Portra 160 that is slightly out of date.

I had it developed at the local pharmacy so the scans are small, but nice. The photos taken in the falling snow were a blurry mess. I think the camera focused on the nearby snow and gave me really poor DOF. Speaking of focusing points, the viewfinder is kind of wonky (or at least my understanding of the manual was). It seems the top of the photos is about 1/4 of the way down in the view finder as noted by some curving lines. In addition, it seems to be offset a little to the right. I was unsure where the edges of the frame were, so, I kind of just winged it by putting the center of the photo on the dot in the viewfinder and hoping for the best.

The camera is supposed to have a half press position where you can press it half way to get a focus confirmation and recompose if desired. I gave up trying to hit it! The slightest touch of the shutter button caused it to fire. lol The photos seemed to come out fine despite my uncertainty.

The ones that hit are sharp and clear with nice depth of field. I have included several of the photos that I liked, but not all from the roll.

I loved the size of the camera, I can see carrying it with me all the time if I had one. I’d have to get used to the hair trigger shutter and figure out exactly how the framing worked. All in all, I wouldn’t mind having a T5. Thanks for allowing me to participate in the Traveling Yashica project!

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