Yashica-Mat and Kodak Bantam

[taylor_solett]

I just received both a Yashica-Mat and Kodak Bantam cameras. I've been doing digital photography for a while now, but know nothing of

the world of film photography. I've been searching on the internet for more information on these cameras, but am having little luck. If

anyone has any information or helpful tips/sites/etc that I could put to use it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Taylor

[lex_jenkins]

Photo.net's "Classic Manual Cameras Forum" is a good place to start: http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/

[taylor_solett]

Of course I missed that forum. Thank you.

[tonmestrom]

The Kodak I don't know. I do hoewever own a Yashica Mat-124 G. It was the MF camera I did part of my training with. I bought it looking in mint condition which was a bit of a worry (because hardly ever used) so I had the shutter taken apart, restored and adjusted to specification. To this day it's still as accurate as it was then although I don't use it that often anymore. It's quit, light and great for belly shots on the street. From it's negatives I produced some great large format prints. You'd need a handheld meter though. I used a 1 degree spotmeter for that.

 

My advice: get it in pristine working order and you'll have a camera which will give you a lot of good negs for years to come.

[tsuacctnt]

Oddly I have that very same combination of cameras. The Kodak Flash-Bantam takes a screwball roll film size that is no longer made 828, you can buy it online for about $10 a roll or if you really want to shoot the thing you can jurry rig 135 (35mm) film to work with some 120 backing paper, some tape, and a pair of scissors. Personall I'd concentrate my efforts on the Yashica Mat as that takes a standard 120 roll film which you can buy at any camera store and still get developed. Like the poster above I have the 120G model, which I sent in recently to have a CLA done. Like the poster above the shutter had to be rebuilt. The camera does have a meter, but it takes an obsolete Mercury button cell battery that is pretty hard to find. A company called Wein makes something called the air-cell which will deliver the necessary 1.35 volts but these batteries are short lived. The Yashica Mat is a good camera to learn the fundamentals of exposure on as you have to manually set both aperature and shutter speed.