Cheap 35mm Battery Independent Camera

Rick58 · Mar 1, 2014

Throughout the years I had Mamiya, Rolleiflex and Yashica TLR's. The TLR with a waist level finder is just a fun camera to shot with. It's hard to explain, but for me it "just felt right".
I have to say out of the 3 brands, I'd buy another Yashica 124G. The photo quality was outstanding in sharpness and contrast. Be it the modern coatings or the glass itself, it even put the Rollei away with it's 1950's CZ "taking lens".
This goes back so far it makes my brain hurt, but if memory serves me right, Yashica went from metal to plastic gearing during it's 124G run. Talk used to be that the plastic never held up as well as the metal and was more problem prone, although I never had the plastic gears to prove or disprove that.

puthenveetilnoel · Mar 8, 2014

Quick update. The roll is moving a little slower than I would have liked but my town has been snowed in the past few days and there are only so many snow cover tree shots I can do lol. I'm gonna try and go to a nearby antique store and see if I can find some good pictures there. Also on the film side I found Walmart is selling 4 rolls of their 200 iso Fujicolor film for $10 and that seems to be the best deal around for me right now.
Yeah I've heard great things about the older yashicas. Rollei seems like you're paying a lot for the name and not necessarily that much better quality. Oh well. I'm not in a position to be drooling over new gear anyway lol.
Though I did pick up this cheap diy TLR kit on eBay. Cheap plastic construction, single element miniscus lens, and probably pretty trashy pictures but it was a lot of fun to build and get a working understanding of the inside of these devices.
Recesky DIY Twin Lens Reflex TLR Holga LOMO for 35mm Film Retro Camera | eBay

Josh66 · Mar 8, 2014

I have one of those. Fun camera, just make sure your expectations aren't too high, lol.

minicoop1985 · Mar 8, 2014

There's something about a TLR that's just right, like Rick said. That thing actually could be quite educational, I imagine. Even if the photos suck, you got the experience of building it, right? That's still something to be proud of.

puthenveetilnoel · Mar 8, 2014

minicoop1985 said:
There's something about a TLR that's just right, like Rick said. That thing actually could be quite educational, I imagine. Even if the photos suck, you got the experience of building it, right? That's still something to be proud of.

My thoughts exactly. From what I've seen online there is a lot of vignetting and its tricky to get in focus but hopefully in the right conditions I can get some artsy (if blurry) shots. But first things first I gotta finish my first roll in the Nikkormat that rick was nice enough to give to me.

Josh66 · Mar 8, 2014

You can definitely get some cool shots with it, just don't go in expecting the same quality as a "real" camera.

puthenveetilnoel · Apr 16, 2014

OK sorry for this incredibly late post. I've had some difficult personal problems, but I finally finished my first roll. As promised here are the shots. Sorry for some of the poor quality but some of them turned out well i think. These were processed at my local

limr · Apr 16, 2014

Would love to see them, but can't for some reason.

puthenveetilnoel · Apr 16, 2014

darn...
im gonna upload them on flikr and then repost them i guess.

limr · Apr 16, 2014

Huh. They're showing up now. Might just be me - I'm on my netbook at the moment and sometimes it goes a bit wonky.

The indoor ones are too underexposed to really see much - looks like you were in an antique shop or something? I love haunting the junk shops and am always tempted to take pictures, but I've learned that indoor light is never as strong as it looks, at least not as far as a camera is concerned. But the outdoor ones look like they're good exposures. It's definitely a start!

puthenveetilnoel · Apr 16, 2014

Yeah the indoor ones were way too dark. I'm gonna go back there with the next roll and lower the shutter speed and up the aperture. I was kind of just guessing with the settings. Im gonna use a light meter app on my phone.

I have 14 more shots that I will be showing from my flickr account.

puthenveetilnoel · Apr 16, 2014

Ok here is the link with the full list of pictures.
There are some better indoor pictures and some "artsy" photos. lol

https://www.flickr.com/photos/123465849@N08/

puthenveetilnoel · Apr 16, 2014

A little later this week I'm to try my best at scanning the negatives at home and see if I can save a little money getting them developed without needing to buy a photodisc.