Yashica Lynx 5000E: Yashica Haunts My Dream #1

Lynx is like a girl next door with great personality who’s on a little chubby side. But why do I often dream of Yashica. Could it be the Radioactive lens giving me brain damage? Could it be the nostalgic feeling of 1960’s Japan and Astro Boy?

Yashica haunts my dream. I’m totally obsessed with Yashica. It could be the name that kind of rolls in your tongue, Yash! –i—ca. It could be the Radioactive lens.

It could be the nostalgic feeling I get when I look or touch a Yashica.

Sometimes, I dream of Post-war Japan in the 1960s, era of economic growth, technology advancement, student protest, and Astro Boy. In those dreams, Yashica is always there.

The camera I want to introduce to you at this time is called Yashica Lynx 5000E. Yashica Lynx 5000E is a rangefinder camera made in 1962. It earned the name “Lynx” for its fastest shutter speed of 1/1000 sec.

I purchased my Lynx from Ebay for $20. I wanted to buy my 1st rangefinder at the time and was debating whether to get Russian’ Zorki or other Leica copies. I decided to go with Lynx because it was the cheapest option.

Lynx is not a “sleek” looking rangefinder. In fact, it’s about the same size as a Medium-format Holga and it weighs a ton (when you are used to carrying plastic toy camera). However, Lynx feels solid and natural in my hands. Lynx exterior is your typical chrome and black. I like the coarse black leatherette. Lynx isn’t the prettiest but it isn’t bad to look at either. It is like a girl next door with great personality who’s on a little chubby side.

Shooting with this full manual camera is fun. With manual camera, you only have yourself to blame for every fucked up shots. It is challenging fun like tying your shoes with one hand, peeling a whole apple without breaking the peeling.

Yashica Lynx 5000E takes 35mm film. It has 40mm focal length with maximum aperture of f1.8. The lens is quite fast, sharp and versatile. Turning the metal focus ring is very satisfying. When I press the shutter it whispers “Shhh.

Sometime, I get some vignette in outside shot with aperture at f8 which I think is super cool. I loaded it with Fuji Superia 200ASA and the saturation was just great.

I loaded it with Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 and I got a “natural high” by looking at the results.

Oh, this camera has built in light meter too. It’d show, in the viewfinder, whether your shot will be over or under exposed. I’ve never used it because I’m just too lazy to find the battery for it. Anyway, Sunny 16 rule works for me most of the time.

Pros: Cheap, Solid built, Easy to use, sharp and fast lens
Cons: quite big, can’t do mid-roll double exposure (last time I tried, I tore my film apart). IT WILL HAUNT YOUR DREAM!

I recommend you adopting one of these babies and feed it films.

Thank you very much for reading.

written by mr-korn on 2011-06-08 #gear #yashica #rangefinder #review #vintage-camera #lomography #film-camera #user-review #yashica-lynx #camera-fetish