Yasuhara T981 & Nikon 50mm f/2 – My Impressionist kit – By Aivaras

By Aivaras

I’m SLR guy. I started to shoot film with one. They formed my habits of seeing and I appreciate the honest approach of the single lens reflex system with how it allows me to see directly through the lens and shows the scene as close to what the print will look like as is possible.

But still, the dark side of rangefinders tempted me for a long time. What do I know, I’m just weak human… no Jedi. I gave in. My first attempt shooting one was not successful. The problem was me, not the camera. I hunted down Voigtlander Bessa R3A camera and paired it with Lomography Jupiter 3+ lens. While this set was beautiful and capable of giving perfect results, it frustrated me because of an inability to see 50mm frame lines in viewfinder. I wear prescription glasses, and even I did my homework investigating if the R3A’s finder is suitable for glass wearers. It appears that we four-eyes are not made the same. I had to constantly push the camera to my face to perfectly calibrate my eye to the dead centre of the finder and still I had to roll my eye to see the frame lines. So, I parted with this camera and lens…

But then, about a year ago, the same spot in my mind began to itch. This time I started to investigate from the exact problematic point I stumbled upon last time. I had a minimal set of requirements I needed the kit to meet:

– Comfortably seen 50mm frame lines / high eyepoint finder
– Easy to see rangefinder patch
– In-built TTL metering
– Reasonable price

This list led me to one option quite quickly – the quirky and not very widely known, but nonetheless carrying a bit of legend status camera – Yasuhara T981.

This won’t be a review of this camera. I don’t think that world needs more reviews of it. If you want to dig deeper I’d recommend this review talking both about history of camera and the actual usage experience.

My 5 cents is as follows:

– The finder is good and bright and works for me
– The camera is simple and straightforward it gets out of the way and let concentrate on shooting.
– I like the design and old school build quality

OK, now I have a rangefinder camera. But I needed 50mm lens for it. Another list of personal requirements:

– Sonnar type LTM lens
– Clickable aperture ring
– f/2

Now this is funny, even for me, but I’ll share it… you see, I had a 50mm f/2 lens depth of field scale tattoo on my wrist. So I thought that it’s good idea that my next 50mm lens would match it. Strong sane and wise argument, isn’t it…? (you can see my tattoo here)

I actually had a former acquaintance with Nikkor 5cm H.C. f/2 lens. The experience was good, so I decided to go for it again. One thing that I failed to take into account was its close focus ability. You see – Yasuhara RF is capable of a minimum focusing of 70cm, and this Nikkor can focus even closer to 50cm. But, the problem is that the lens is not rangefinder coupled to focus closer than 1 meter. So, basically, I got a 1 m minimal focus lens. But in practice this isn’t any trouble for me.

So, I got the set, I went through testing and “honeymoon” phases with it, and now I can state that its very enjoyable camera and lens to shoot. This set became my “mood” set – I take it when I’m in mood to have puristic shooting experience: simple WF, one lens, only manual controls.

After some time, I did notice that I tend to put only one film in Yasuhara T981 – a classic, Kodak Tri-X400. This film kind of belongs in this camera and lens combo. Both from idealistic point “classic goes good with classic” and both from more practical viewpoint – this Nikkor lens does its magic on BW pictures.

I can tell that this set could do perfectly fine and quite sharp color and black and white pictures, but I leave this kind of images to my other cameras. With this set I like to take only abstract impressions of fleeting moments where feeling is more important than tangible image characteristics. It’s my impressionists kit.

sea shore laundry shoes and shower bird siluete woman, man on the beach gig tunnel

a.

My other articles can be found on 35mmc here
My website here

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About The Author

By Aivaras
enthusiast photographer, film freak, pentaxian, bokeh addict
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Comments

DeeDee Yelverton on Yasuhara T981 & Nikon 50mm f/2 – My Impressionist kit – By Aivaras

Comment posted: 04/01/2021

Beautiful images! I especially like the first two. And, after all, the fleeting moments and feelings are what the photographs are all about. :) Thanks for sharing these!
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Aivaras replied:

Comment posted: 04/01/2021

Thank you!

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Jesper Reiche on Yasuhara T981 & Nikon 50mm f/2 – My Impressionist kit – By Aivaras

Comment posted: 04/01/2021

That first frame of the beach is just delicious! The grain and mood is just perfect.
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Aivaras replied:

Comment posted: 04/01/2021

Thanks!

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Lukas on Yasuhara T981 & Nikon 50mm f/2 – My Impressionist kit – By Aivaras

Comment posted: 04/01/2021

Nice post, thanks for putting in the effort. The Nikkor can rather easily modded for 0.7m rf coupling, at least on a Leica. In case the coupling on the Yasuhara works similarly (which I presume), this could be useful information to you, too. There are several detailed posts on rangefinderforum that you can find via google. I have done this myself and, given some basic tools and a steady hand, it is not that complicated.
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Aivaras replied:

Comment posted: 04/01/2021

Thanks. Yeah, heard about posssibility to modify Nikkor. Maybe will go for that in the future, but on the other hand - strange, but one meter of minimal focus doesnt concern me much.

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Kate Johnson on Yasuhara T981 & Nikon 50mm f/2 – My Impressionist kit – By Aivaras

Comment posted: 06/01/2021

Interesting to find another photographer working on an Impressionist Theme. I call mine "My Inner Monet", I was inspired by a recent Monet Exhibit in Denver.

I focussing on pre-1940 folding cameras to create my moods.....
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steve marino on Yasuhara T981 & Nikon 50mm f/2 – My Impressionist kit – By Aivaras

Comment posted: 28/02/2022

Nice review of a camera that one seldom sees. There's one for sale on APUG in fact. I prefer SLRs too, and fortunately, there's quite a few older SLRs that are almost as small as the rangefinders. The Nikon FG and EM, OMs, and some tiny Pentax cameras.

I wear glasses and had to sell my R3a for exactly the reason you stated, but I found an R2a, which had eye relief for us eyeglasses wearers.
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Aivaras replied:

Comment posted: 28/02/2022

Thanks! Yeah, this SLR / rangefinder preference is a thing. I refused Yasuhara, then I still tried to keep up with rangefinders with Konica Hexar RF, but at the end of the day, now I'm shooting only with SLR's. Looks like I cant overcome my own habits of seeing. :)

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