Its about time I shot some jumping photos. A quick session at a local spot wtih Adam. Mmmm green…

Its been the best 2 weeks down here,  photos can’t do it justice.  Here are some from the weekend…

Well, not really new, and not really a toy, but never mind. The other day my uncle asked if I would be interested in having back a camera that my dad gave to him about 25 years ago. Always being one for collecting cameras I naturally said yes, and failed to think of any cameras my Dad used to have to try and work out what it was. So it was with some surprise that I received a Yashica Electro 35 GTN Rangefinder, complete with wide angle and tele converters, hotshoe viewfinder, even a little tripod, all in a hard case carry box. First off this is quite a chunky camera, built in a time when things were built to last. Its a metal construction with brass bottom plates, finished in all black, with gold electric contacts. The ‘G’ in GTN is for Gold, The ‘T’ means Black Body (there is also a GSN with a silver body), and ‘N’ being new. Its an aperture priority camera, so you just set the aperture, and the camera does the rest, and does it pretty accurately from all accounts due to its leaf stepless shutter. Being stepless, the camera can shoot at any speed from 30 seconds to 1/500. If the camera decides it wants to shoot at 1/243, it can. Easy. Other nice things include the (apparently legendary) Yashinon DX 45mm f/1.7 lens, and a PC sync socket on the side. Another advantage of a Leaf shutter means the flash will also sync at any shutter speed, I hope to do some nice experimenting with this.
 
So far all the mechanicals work fine, I just need to get a new battery to test the electrics (the original 5.6V mercury batteries are no longer made) The light seals need some attention, but thats an easy fix, then I can run some film though it.
 
The Beast outside -
 

Lots more info here: http://www.mattdentonphoto.com/cameras/yashica_gsn.html