Yashica FR

I shoot my pictures with Pentax cameras. My first DSLR was a Pentax and I have stuck with the brand.

Last year I bought a lens from eBay that was advertised as being a Pentax fit. When it arrived I found it to be a Contax/Yashica mount.

The lens was from a charity shop and hadn't cost much. Furthermore, it was still a beauty and I left it in it's case on a shelf.

You might think I had put it to the back of my mind but I hadn't. The lens on a shelf had been denied it's purpose in life and it was a constant regret.

I had ruled out getting an adapter, to enable a fit on my Pentax kit, and last week the solution presented itself with an ad for a Yashica FR on eBay.

It was a little more than some but came with a Yashica 50mm f1.7 lens, something I would not want to be without. It's the bread and butter lens of a 35mm camera. So I bought the camera so the lens I already had could perform it's intended purpose once more.

Back in the 60's Yashica had a bit of a name but to the best of my limited knowledge has produced Medium Format cameras, primarily Twin Lens Reflex. The FR was their attack on the growing 35mm SLR market, circa 1976, which made my acquisition 40 years old.

When it arrived it was as described and everything appeared to be working correctly. It was a thing of beauty to my eye; I just have a thing for those 70's 35mm cameras. I loaded some colour negative ASA200 film and began trying to use the 36 exposures in a relatively useful manner. It was harder than I imagined and rain stopped play on occasion.

Eventually a trip out got the film counter to the 36 mark and I wound the film back to remove from the camera and take to Max Spielman for a 1 hour process.

Before I go further I will mention that rewinding the film had appeared easier than I recalled from my youth. When I returned to collect my processed film it was completely blank. I was gutted.

I went home and loaded another reel, this time making sure that both spindles were turning. It was harder than I imagined and when I finally decided it still wasn't right I made the decision to wreck another £5 roll of film by opening the back to ensure it was winding on correctly. It wasn't.

It looked like I had probably exposed about 6 inches of film so I decided to try and continue use of my last roll of film. I swallowed my pride and went to Youtube to try and find some tips on this Yashica. Thankfully someone had kindly demonstrated the procedure for loading a Yashica FR and it was a little more awkward than I was used to.

The camera is now waiting for another dry day so that I can try again. Those moments I lost are gone forever but what can you do? Digital technology has made photography an awful lot more accessible but I had a challenge on my hands and I'm not going to pass on it.

If I'm successful this time I hope to be able to share some of my eBay bargain, 40 year old, film adventures with this blog. Fingers crossed.