My first medium format camera

My first medium format camera

Released in 1957, the Yashica 635 is a medium format twin lens reflex (TLR) camera. What does this mean? It is fitted with not one, but 2 lenses. The top lenses is used to compose your image via a waist level viewfinder, the other is a Yashikor f/3.5 80mm lens used for capturing your images.

Yashica 635

The Yashic 635 is fitted with a Copal MXV shutter which ranges from 1 second to 1/500, plus bulb. 1 roll of medium format film will produce 12 square (6x6) images. However, I chose this camera as my first medium format camera for 1 main reason. By installing an adapter kit you can also shoot 35mm film in it. This means I can get up to 36 images before needing to reload and I have access to a wider range of film stocks!


35mm Adapter Kit

Another feature that drew me in was the ability to easily take multiple exposures. Before taking a photo you need to use a lever to set the shutter. This lever can be set as many times as you like before advancing to the next frame!

How to cock the shutter
By cocking the shutter and taking a photo 3 times before advancing to the next frame i was able to produce this triple exposure image! It was taken on some expired Fujifilm C200 using the 35mm fillm adapter kit.
The benefit of sticking with shooting medium format film is that it produces larger negatives which results in higher quality photos. It can take a while to get used to compositing a square image if you are used to using 35mm film, it still throws me off sometimes even after years of using TLRs. The following photos were taken on medium format and 35mm film.
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