Radiant

Spider pit

Stacked 2

Parked

Stacked

The Yashica lives

In return for loaning my old IXUS indefinitely to my folks, my dad recently gave me his old Yashica Electro 35 GTN (which is like the GSN, just black). The GTN is a 35mm rangefinder with a fixed 45mm f/1.7 lens, first made in the 70s. Some folks on the Net seem to regard it as a respectable camera, with a reportedly sharp lens, so I thought I would give it a go. I dropped by Hidalgo during a recent trip to Manila to have it cleaned and looked at, and brought it back home with me.

Like all rangefinder cameras, you focus the GTN by centering the subject in the finder, turning the focus ring on the lens, which is coupled to a prism, thus adjusting the projected double-image (a yellow diamond in the GTN's case) in the middle of the view. When the two images overlap perfectly, your subject will be in focus. The GTN has some interesting quirks in its design too though. It has a very quiet metal leaf shutter, which is actually positioned in front of the lens aperture mechanism, and the two work in tandem to get exposures. Similarly, the aperture ring is forward of the focus ring, which moves a lens element located behind the aperture. The ASA dial works by mechanically adjusting a diamond-shaped iris to control light input to the light meter. Exposure can be set to bulb, auto, or flash metering. In auto mode, the camera gives fully-automatic aperture-priority exposure (but of course you can use the old trick of using the ASA dial for exposure compensation). A red bulb (not LED, mind you) lights up if the subject is too bright (it only has a maximum shutter speed of 1/500), and the yellow bulb lights up if it thinks the proper shutter speed would be too slow, meaning you had better use a wider aperture, better lighting, or stay very still while taking the shot. High-tech!

The repairman had assured me it would work as soon as I popped in a battery. That in itself was a challenge. The GTN was originally spec'ed to use a 5.6V mercury battery that has since been banned (thankfully), but the repairman also gave me a tip, which was to shim together four 1.5V LR44 alkaline watch batteries. Worked every time, he said. So I got the batteries, and later also found a 6-volt equivalent called (what do you know) an 4LR44, took out my multimeter, and set out to work.

I wanted to make a proper battery adapter that I could reuse, but I wanted to see if the electricals even still worked, so I made a temporary battery. First, I made the conductive shim out of copper 10-centavo coins, around 5 of them, taped them to the 4LR44, and popped it in, a perfect fit. I then found out that the positive terminal, which was on the battery container cap, was not contacting the body anymore, so I fashioned a thin springy metal holder salvaged from an old clock to make sure the circuit was closed.

We have power!

That seems to have done the trick, and now I have the electrical system working again. I proceeded to check if the light meter was functioning, by pointing the camera at differently-lit subjects, at different ASA and aperture settings, and saw if it adjusted exposure accordingly. I was disappointed to find out that not only did it seem to meter incorrectly, but during long exposures (dim light or tiny apertures) the shutter would stay open, and exposing the aperture blades stuck at the chosen size. The only way I could get it unstuck was by by advancing the film lever, setting aperture wide open, pointing it at a bright light, and trigger the shutter again. I looked around the ether and found reason to believe this might be a case of the infamous Yashica "pad of death". So after gathering as much technical information as I could for servicing the camera, I got out the precision tools and dove in.

First I had to remove the top, which is accomplished by unscrewing the film advance mechanism, the ASA dial, three screws on the top plate, and the film rewind lever. If you are reading this as a guide for your own exploration, note that there are several layers of springy washers involved, so be sure nothing flies off, never to be found. The top plate lifts off easily, and the wires to the hotshoe are long enough to be put it aside without disconnecting them.

Visible above are the finder enclosure, yellow focus glass, the focus-coupled mirror with the window for the frame lines in front, and the exposure indicator bulbs. To the left are the ASA indexing mechanism, shutter release, and film counter/advance.


Getting to the pad requires removing the front plate, a considerably bigger challenge. Again, if you are reading this as a guide, be warned that you can spend hours getting it back together. The front plate construction on the GTN is attached by a screw directly to the rear of the shutter release and four screws on the front, two on either side of the lens. Getting to them requires removing the faux-leather skin, starting from around the lens. I used an Xacto knife, very carefully, as the contact cement was pretty sticky. The logo sticker had to go too, as it covers a screw head. I then taped the skin back, so I would not have to peel it all the way.

The front comes off freely after this, but I did it carefully and noted where everything went. The way to remove the front is to gently pull the lens out and push it down a little, and then up to free it from the catch at the bottom front. The cables are soldered on pretty well but taking utmost care goes without saying here.

With the front separated from the body, the pad in question could be clearly seen. In the case of my GTN, the pad was mounted not on the swiveling mount, but somehow got stuck on the end of the bar it was supposed to push down. The repairman did a lousy job; as you can see, the plate was gooey, and on closer inspection, the replacement pad turned out to a bunch of folded masking tape. Waste of P500, that was.

The pad in question, stuck to the top of the shorter bar

Nothing else I could do. So I cleaned the mount, got a hard rubber stopper and whittled a 4x5x2mm pad from it as close as I could get to the perceived fit, and glued it on.

Then came the reassembly. It seems the three main contact areas, from stage left to right, are the focus-coupling mechanism that actuates the rangefinder, a tube in the middle which I gather has to do with the shutter mechanism (and which took me the longest), and the socket that locks with the vertical bar of the film advance mechanism. After a series of expeditions, re-reading the manual, and poring over my "before" shots, I finally got it back together.

Getting this far, I figured I would open the lens barrel to have a look to make sure the shutter was not getting stuck there and to clean up a bit. This part was relatively easy, with the right tools. Each ring serves as a lock for the element underneath. Lots of tiny parts though, so it is useful to have precision screwdrivers, preferably magnetized.

After making sure everything was in order, I put it back together, cleaning each part as best I could as I went, especially the light meter glass, the light entrance window, and the finder. When I got it all back, I tested the autoexposure again, and this time confirmed that metering was definitely working, and longer exposures were being adjusted for. Unfortunately, it still gets stuck when set to f/8-f/16. I will have to reopen it sometime, reconfirm voltage behavior, and maybe replace the pad with a different material; I suspect it is still not pushing the bottom spring as far as it goes. But for now, I at least have it in a workable state again, and after this ordeal I am definitely looking forward to shooting with it.

Back together and all clean!

Many thanks and respect to the Yashica guy for all the help.

Lounging