Photography videos that use humour are terrible... When I clicked on this one and saw this guy's punchable face start talking, I almost closed the tab ... But, I listened to his words for a bit, although he looks like he was born on tumblr, hes actually pretty funny and knowledgeable about cameras. Bravo sir/zir, keep it up! .... Stuff it, I'll subscribe to this punchable guy's channel.
The whole point of the square format on TLRs is that it’s impractical to use the camera in any other way apart from looking down on the focus screen (I know there is the sports finder way of shooting). This means one does not need to change the camera orientation when taking pictures but one can crop for portrait or landscape later when making prints or keep it as a square picture if one prefers. Later 120 film cameras overcame this limitation with separate film backs etc. Using a TLR camera is an altogether different picture taking experience and one worth the effort if possible
Ironically enough when I started shooting film I wanted a 6x6 precisely because it wasn’t a format that I was familiar with. All these years and cameras later I still absolutely love it. It has challenges but there’s something satisfying about square.
Nice to see a variety of shots showing that you've actually used yours. I picked up one of these at a bargain price on facebook marketplace and came on here looking for some inspiration and yours is the only video that really showcases multiple rolls of film shot at different times and of a range of subjects. All the others seem to be people going out and shooting one roll in a particularly boring park, whereas I'm sure you've paid the poor image tax over a few rolls and lived to tell the tale with some good ones out the other side. Nice work man.
Great video man...I love my Yashica 635. You should get the 135 kit. It's pretty good specially when travelling. You have the best of both world between 120 & 135...:)
I have watched your video a couple of times now and you make some good points, but you apparently think Mamiya TLRs are "weird"! I don't understand this statement. They are far advanced over Yashica TLRs and have much more flexibility. I don't know how you managed to come up with this idea, but I think you are totally off-base on it. And when you stated that "And they all have some sort of spell cast on them that lures old people towards them.", there is no spell that causes people o buy Mamiya TLRs, it is the many great features that Mamiya Cameras have. Spoken as an old person who owns two Mamiya C-330s and has shot with them since the 1960s.
While I can accept his proposal that starting out in medium format with a TLR is very valid, I despair of his suggestion that you do so with a Yashica 635. In the past I briefly owned one, like new condition with the 35mm film adapter and box-case designed to hold the whole kit. Like his, mine had the Yashikor lens, which I later discovered is a three element triplet, a lens design from the early 1930s which by the late 1950s had been discarded except for the cheapest cameras. I took the Yashica a photo trip, shooting some ice and frost on a mountain lake, very sharp light reflections. However, the prints had no sparkle, the crystals no sharpness. Compared to other triplet lenses, this one is at best ordinary. Compared to the large numbers of Tessar knock-offs (4 element) used in TLRs, including Yashica's faitly poor Yashinon used in Yashicamats, it a down right Dog. Declaring this lens as the sharpest he's owned? A year ago, he reviewed a Bronica Etrs, which has a far superior lens, very far. If he think this puppy is better, his next optical budget needs to go to new spectacles.
Actually, I have to disagree with you about the sharpness of the Yashikor lenses in the 635. I have one, and have take some absolutely tack sharp images with it, though I did use a tripod. I also have Yashica MAT124G, with the Yashinon lenses, that also has taken some equally sharp photo's as well.
@@catey62 Sharpness is a relative, not absolute, concept, at least as to camera lenses. Those lenses can be subjected to objective optical tests, and in that regard, the lens used in the Yashica TLRS is simply not in the same class as nearly all others. Whether the Yashicas are "sharp:" to a user is largely dependent on what you do with the images taken. If you go into a darkroom and make 11x14 or 16x20 prints from the Yashica negative, you are not going to get a crisp, detailed image with good contrast. If you scan our negative, particularly with a flatbed scanner, and post the results to social media or make inkjet prints from a digitally enhanced image file, you won't see a difference between a Yashica TLR and a Hasselblad, or a 35mm SLR for that matter. As for the Yashikor, it is a verty ordinary 3 element lens, in concept muchg like a Zeiss Novar or many other lenses used in MF cameras frmo the 1930s to the early 1950s. Shut down to an aperture of f8.0 or smaller, it can do a very credible job. At wider apertures, the inherent lack of optical correction in that lens design makes anything close to "sharp" impossible. Remember that the cameras these lenses were historically used in were basically snapshot cameras where prints were usually made by contact printing in the same size as the negative. Anything would look great in that process.
