Film: 35 mm
Format/Frame: 24 x 36 mm
So many of my old cameras are quirky to use. It’s part of their charm, actually. In contrast, the Electro 35 GSN worked so smoothly that it almost disappeared in my hands.
—Jim Grey
Check out Jim Grey’s complete Yashica Electro 35 review HERE.
My Insights on the Yashica Electro 35
When I was in high school, I remember seeing the Electro 35 in various stores that sold cameras, but at the time, I had to have a single lens reflex (SLR) instead—as those were the cameras to own back then. Further, I wasn’t from a family of money, so whatever camera I was going to get, it would only be a single one.
In all of the years that followed, I never researched the Yashica model that I was subconsciously enamored with—bewitched by its aesthetic and the way it looked to be super engineered and thus complex. Back then, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the difference between a rangefinder camera and an SLR camera, but I remember thinking that the Electro 35 must have been much more complicated than my Minolta SRT202.
Finally, over twenty years later, I came across an Electro 35 at a local garage sale. It had once belonged to the seller’s mother and from everything I could see, was in great shape. So, I walked away with the dream-camera of my youth for only $25. Over the next fifteen years, I would find two more of these beauties for about the same amount that I also couldn’t resist.
When it comes to fashion and the inclusion of cameras, if there is one camera you want to be seen with draped around your neck at any event (photographic or non-photographic), it is the Yashica Electro 35… with a red filter and lens shade attached.
