I mentioned last month that I was planning to get a new battery cover for my Yashica FX-D Quartz. It cost me $25 for a Yashica FX-3 off of eBay (which doesn’t seem to work, incidentally), plus a $10 battery from Radio Shack, but it was totally worth it.
With a little help from Mr. Butkus, who posted the instruction manual online gratis, I figured out how to work the auto-exposure on my new-to-me axe. Until the Yashica FX-D, I’d never actually used a camera that had a separate button for the light meter, rather than half-pressing the shutter release.
The 50mm lens it came with is close-focusing and fast, relatively speaking: f/2 with a minimum focusing distance of about 1.5 feet. It’s definitely in need of a good cleaning, inside and out (see photo below — I don’t think that’s pollen?); now that I know how much I love using it, though, I’m more than willing to invest in a professional cleaning and some new leather for my Yashica.
I love that every camera I own, especially every film camera, has a unique quality all its own. The “personalities” of each of my cameras is especially noticeable now that I have a search by camera starting off my photos category. Some cameras vignette and have light falloff at the edges, others are sharper in the center, still others habitually overexpose. While a professional photographer might find this problematic, I find it charming. Maybe not necessarily “artsy,” but fun, anyway.
Also in the bag of fun that came with the FX-D: an f/2.8 135mm lens and a 2X teleconverter. I should slap those on and see if they play nice, too…