35mm Rangefinder
Yashica Electro 35
Yashica Electro 35
Introduced in 1966, the Yashica Electro 35 quickly became immensely popular. The rangefinder is coupled to the focusing ring, with a parralax-corrected viewfinder. It operates solely in aperture-priority auto-exposure mode, making it ideal for those new to photography or those who don’t want to fiddle around with too many dials.
It is fitted with a fixed Yashinon-DX f/1.7 35mm lens (with a superb lens design, a coated Gauss-type 6 elements in 4 groups). It was designed for use with a Mercury PX23 battery, which can seamlessly replaced by 4SR44/357 batteries and an adapter that can be home-made, purchased, or even 3D printed.
This particular example has “357 44 5191” carved into the baseplate. What could it mean? The lens is in great shape, all mechanical operations work smoothly, and the rangefinder shows to be accurate.