Vintage

1964

Yashica-Mat EM

Serial #6050031

TLR Camera

In Original Case.

The camera still has a film inside,

The camera shows some exterior wear,

It has written inside the previous owners name on leather case

I cannot give a definitive answer that everything is in A1 condition but it worked perfectly well previously

History of the Yashica-Mat EM

Released in 1964, the Yashica-Mat EM features an uncoupled light meter and an 80mm f/3.5 Yashinon shooting lens. The "EM" stands for Exposure Meter, referring to the uncoupled selenium cell exposure meter in front of the viewfinder. It's an all-mechanical camera; even the light meter doesn't need a battery. The Yashica-Mat EM is a solidly made, easy-to-use camera. It can be found for a reasonable price on eBay, and is an excellent introduction to medium-format photography. It's clearly an evolution in the line of the 1957 Yashica-Mat and the 1958 Yashica-Mat LM. It differs from the latter camera only in its easier-to-use exposure meter.

Features

It has a Copal MXV leaf shutter, capable of speeds ranging from B and 1 second to 1/500s. It offers flash sync at all speeds. The taking lens is a 3.5 Yashinon, an 80 mm four-element lens said to be of the Tessar design. It can be stopped down to F/22. The viewing lens is a 3.2 Yashinon. It accepts bay I filters. Shutter speeds and diaphragm are set by two wheels on the front plate, the values set are shown in a window above the viewing lens.

Focusing is done by a focusing wheel on the left of the camera. It has a distance scale surrounded by a depth of field scale engraved in the body. There is a small window in which you can set the ISO and DIN value of the film you use. ISO 400 is the highest value. The exposure meter is not coupled, so setting this speed is more a reminder than of any practical use.

The body is all-metal, covered by black square shaped leather. It is quite a heavy camera, about 1.2 Kg. Film transport and cocking the shutter is done by a crank. Winding makes a rattling noise. Looking onto the ground glass in the waist-level finder, the selected shutter speed, aperture and light meter indications are visible. Its viewing hood contains a fresnel screen with red grid lines (5×5) to help composition. For exact focusing, it has a magnifying loupe. The back plate of the waist level finder could be flipped open to expose the sports finder for additional composition possibilities.

The camera is loaded by opening the bottom: turn towards the "O" to open. It uses 120-rollfilm only, on which it takes 6×6 pictures (or more accurately: 55mm × 55mm)