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The Yashica 44 comes complete with a self-timer, whereby the same caveat applies as with its bigger sisters: make sure the M/X lever is set to "X", or you'll bugger the mechanism up. Ignore this at your peril! Since you're unlikely to ever use a bulb flashgun, you'll never need the "M" setting. This particular version comes with a folding lever for advancing the film, but you have to cock the shutter manually for every shot. It's so easy to forget - did you advance? is it cocked? - that you might want to develop a good work habit right from the start:
Do it like this, and you'll always be ready for the next shot,
but the shutter won't be cocked. This will leave the shutter springs relaxed, a
good tip for a long shutter life. All you'll have to do to grab a shot is to
cock the shutter with a down swing on the green lever, focus and shoot. On the plus side, deliberate double exposures - difficult with most TLRs - are easy with this little Yashica. Not a Rollei, no, but Yashica was perfectly capable of building excellent quality TLRs, had plenty of practice at it, and it certainly shows with this particular model. The Copal SV shutter was common to most Japanese TLRs of the period. The winding crank, like the knob on the later Rolleicord models, is digressive: frame one gives you a 200 degree swing, but each successive shot reduces the angle slightly to compensate for the increasing amount of film on the take-up spool. The system works well, and spaces all twelve shots evenly. The general build quality is very high, and the smart, grey leatherette on mine has survived the test of time - a careful cleaning with washing-up liquid on Q-tips brought it back to its original colour. With some careful polishing with Brasso, the aluminium winding crank shone like new again. With filters and accessories, you should have no trouble finding what you need; the Yashica 44 uses the same Rollei bayonet as most TLRs, the Rollei Bay-1. If you're lucky, you might even find original Yashica 44 accessories at a photo-fair, like a grey lens hood. If not, you might have to bite the bullet and buy Rollei goodies! In any case, you'd be wise to use a hood with this camera - no TLR lens is very well protected against stray light. Handling this tiny TLR takes requires a mental change of gears if you're used to its full-sized stablemates. The viewfinder is - understandably - quite a bit smaller, and you'll have to hold the camera closer to your eye if you expect to see what's showing on the screen. Thin red cross hairs help you compose your shot straight, and the screen is very bright by 50s standards. Be very careful that the little flip-out magnifier is positioned absolutely flat, or you'll have trouble focusing properly. This is because the distance between magnifier and screen is much shorter than with full-sized TLRs, and it's more sensitive to distortion. The baby TLR will fit into the palm of your right hand comfortably, and compared to the monstrous Mamiya C330 the weight is negligible! It's easy to see why the four-by-four was so popular with lady photographers; it's small and light, very easy to use, and capable of wonderful results. TLRs were never really aimed at the quick snapshot market; they're more for carefully composed, well thought out photographs. The Yashica 44 is no exception, but has at least the advantage of taking up very little space in your camera bag. Use it in a crowd, and people will come up and quiz you about it - I've been asked if it's a movie camera! On the basis of six Efke 100 B&W films, I can see my
keeping this camera for a long time! Sharpness at f-5.6 and smaller is certainly
good enough for a grain- free 8x8 inch prints. I haven't tried printing anything bigger yet.
The wagon
photo, shot at 1/4 at f-8 using Efke 100 film and developed in ID-11, looks
considerably nicer as an 8x8 inch print than on this scan. An 8x8 inch print
(about 5:1) from a 127 negative needs slightly less magnification than
printing a 5x7 inch ( 5.4:1) from 35mm. As a result, you'll see less grain on
the prints. The tonal range is just a hair better than you'd
normally get with 35mm, not enough to blow 35mm apart but enough that even
non-experts can see a difference. Edge-to-edge
sharpness is excellent, and contrast about what I'd have expected off my
Tessar-lensed Rolleiflex: a very fine lens by any standards. Complete with its beautiful grey leather case, this Yashica has a hand-built, solid, high quality feel about it. Change your aperture with the little lever on the left side of the lens and you'll see the readout in a tiny but clearly visible window on the right, next to the shutter speed. The speeds, a full range from1/500th down to one second, are selected by turning the serrated ring around the taking lens. Not as convenient as the typical Rolleiflex arrangement, but it works.
Film loading is easy. Locate the film leader in the
take-up spool, and use the crank to advance the film slowly until the arrows
match up - you'll see two raised arrows left and right in the middle of the film
gate. Close the back, and Focusing, using the wheel on the camera's left side, is very smooth on mine. A typical flip-up focusing magnifier is provided, together with the usual folding section in the front of the hood for a sports finder. As with most TLRs, it'll focus down to about one meter (mine, a Canadian export model, is calibrated in feet), with a slightly over-optimistic depth of field scale above the distances, marked up to f-11. All in all, this is a very desirable little TLR, a worthy low budget Baby Rollei ersatz. It would be sad to buy one and not use it. Film is limited but still obtainable, and, judging by the mail I've had recently, there are plenty of enthusiasts out there who'd retired their cameras and are thinking of putting them back into service. Here's a nice link for you: Yashica 44
How to load a Yashica 44LM I've had a lot of mail recently about this particular model - it rarely comes with an instruction manual. Please don't blame me if yours is slightly different, but this is how mine works.
This method might vary a bit for each of the different models - my LM might be a bit later than yours and zeros the frame counter automatically.
Copyright © 2001 by Mike Graham. All rights reserved.
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