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De Yashica - Minister

Dit was mijn eerste camera, gekocht in 1962 met het geld wat ik samen met mijn jongere broer verdiend had met de opbrengst van een aardbeienveldje van 15 are. 100 euro kostte deze aanwinst. Er zat ook nog een diaprojector en een scherm bij van een duister oosteuropees merk. De Yashica was halfautomatisch, d.w.z. zelf aan de ringen draaien tot het wijzertje van de lichtmeter goed stond. Er zat ook een afstandmeter op, 2 vlakjes die over mekaar schoven. De afstand schatten ging eigenlijk sneller en even goed.
Ik had ook een Voigtländer kunnen kopen, maar deze zag er iets gelikter uit.  Alleen de schoolmeester had in die tijd een nog beter toestel.
Dit was de eerste en ook laatste keer dat ik in de bussiness zat. De aardbeienplanten moesten weer de grond uit en de camera bleef al maar door geld kosten aan films en afdrukken. Want je begrijpt wel dat de hele familie regelmatig in beeld wou komen. (download handleiding)

Introductionyashica_minster_1.jpg

The Yashica Minster is one of several rangefinder 35 mm cameras which were manufactured by the Yashica Company of Tokyo. The camera which was also known as an MII was extant around 1961 along with the model J and the Lynx. All three cameras shared a common body design and differed only in the level of specification, with the model J being the least well specified and the Lynx having the fullest specification.

General Features

The Minster is a well designed and constructed 35 mm rigid miniature camera designed for general amateur photography.

The camera is designed to use standard 35 mm film of up to 36 exposures and is manufactured from die-cast alloy with a satin chrome pressed steel top and bottom plates and covered in black, grain patterned, vinyl fabric. Metal fittings and trimmings are satin chromium plated. The lens and shutter assembly are mounted in a single housing attached to the camera front. The camera body incorporates a hinged back, which opens to 180 degrees. A tripod bush is provided on the base plate and an accessory shoe is fitted to the top plate.

This Minster is fitted with a 45 mm Yashinon lens which is a five element triplet type. The lens is contained in a helical mount and is focused in the range 0.8 metres to infinity by rotation of the mount in conjunction with a coupled rangefinder of 43 mm base. The rangefinder is a coincidence type and is integral with the viewfinder. Depth of Field for any selected aperture is shown on a scale on the lens barrel contiguous with he focus scale. The maximum aperture is f2.8 and the lens assembly incorporates a "between the lens" Copal SVL leaf shutter The shutter has speed settings of 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500 and B, and includes a delay facility and is synchronised for both electronic flash and flash bulbs.

The shutter uses the Light Value system of exposure control in which the aperture and shutter speed controls are interlinked; changing one automatically changes the other thus keeping the effective exposure the same. To change the exposure, therefore, it is necessary to change the Light Value applied to the system. For any particular exposure setting the corresponding Light Value covers all of the aperture-speed combinations within the range of the lens and the shutter.

The shutter is tensioned by the action of the film transport lever and released by depressing a button mounted on the camera top to the left of the film advance lever. A double exposure prevention device is linked to the film transport mechanism and unlocked after the shutter has been released.

A sensitive photo-electric exposure meter of the selenium cell type is built-in but is not coupled to the shutter and aperture system. The meter is capable of giving correct readings for both natural and artificial light, and is calibrated at 10, 16, 25, 32, 40, 50, 100, 160, 200 and 400 ASA. In use the film speed is set, using a milled wheel which rotates a 10 position drum within the meter, until the film speed required appears. The surface of the drum carries, for each speed setting, a range of Light Values which also appear in the meter window. Activation of the meter causes the needle to move over the Light Value scale, and the value indicated is transferred to the shutter setting ring. At this point the correct aperture and shutter speed for the prevailing light conditions are locked together. The user can, within the range of Light Values for the subject, vary the aperture and shutter combination to accommodate particular compositional and technical aspects of the exposure.

Whilst the meter window is reasonably large and clearly visible, both the ASA scale and the Light Value scales are difficult to read because of the their size and this difficulty is further exacerbated by the fact that the presentation of the scales is red on silver and this combination does not aid good visual perception.

The top plate of the camera body carries the film advance lever, meter window, accessory shoe and the rewind knob. The rewind knob is of the pull up type and has a folding crank. Film rewinding is simply a matter of unfolding the crank, disengaging the sprocket drive by pressing a button on the camera base and turning the crank until the film is rewound. Pulling up on the knob withdraws the cassette retaining spindle and allows the cassette to be removed. When a new cassette is inserted the rewind knob is returned to its normal position which engages the spindle into the cassette body. The film frame counter is a disc surrounding the film advance lever and rotates one division against a fixed index mark on each stroke of the lever. The counter disc requires to be reset manually.

The viewfinder is direct vision optical type with automatic parallax correction, which shows the image at 2/3 natural size and outlined by a suspended frame.The visible image is greater than the film format size, which is delineated by the suspended frame. The rangefinder focusing area is visible as a bright rectangle in the centre of the image.yashica_minster_2.jpg

The camera back releasing latch is located on the extreme left of the camera base. Imprinted below the latch is "O-P" and to open the back it is necessary to slide the latch and depress it towards the "O" position. When the back is closed the latch returns to the "P" position.


The approximate camera dimensions (L x H x D) are 130 x 81 x 76 mm and it weighs 700 g.

 

Vergelijk deze met de digitale Fuji x100 uit 2011

Fuji-X100.jpg 

 Fotos

dominiek-vroeger.jpg
Mijn jongste broertje. In 1770 wordt hier het nieuwe ouderlijk huis gebouwd
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Mijn jongste zusje toen 18 was
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Op de verjaardagsborrel met Ivo
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Op weekend in Hechtel in de jaren 70.
Onder het mariabeeldje bij het echte ouderlijk huis