I’ve always been intrigued with the TLR (Twin Lens Reflex…ahhh now the title doesn’t seem so creepy right?) and last weekend I set in motion the plan to acquire one.  Conventional knowledge would have you believe that the Yashica Mat 124G is the best place to start for a relatively inexpensive, yet relatively high-performing, entry to the TLR game. That same conventional knowledge, however, has caused second hand prices to skyrocket past reasonable levels, shackling the conventional buyer to a decades old machine for 2x the appropriate price. But as we all know, I am no conventional buyer, I am a man of discerning tastes and abilities. That being said, I set my sights on the Yashica Mat LM, an older (and all manual) model without a coupled light meter or the stylish black trim of its attractive cousin. Why would I do such a thing? Because it’s the lens that matters, and this puppy has the exact same version as the 124G. Thus, hoping to keep my incredibly good eBay streak alive, I placed a bid on an “as-is” LM and won the auction for the low low price of $50 even. Would the gamble pay off? Would I be left with the world’s most beautiful paper weight? Will you even read on to find out?

More images after the break…

Fast-forward a week and the camera arrives at my door, and something definitely isn’t right. I pop open the finder and am greeted with a sea of black, and when I turn it over to check the bottom something rattles inside. The shutter doesn’t fire, the winder sticks, my heart sinks. Like rat-gangster-set-in-concrete-sent-to-the-bottom-of-the-river sinks. “Oh well,” I tell myself, there goes the streak, and it was only $50 bucks.

As if I could get over it that quickly, does that sound at all like Graham Unterberger?

The next few days were spent fervently googling solutions, scouring forums and posts for any logical solution. By this point the panic had faded, and I was resigned to either fixing the beast, or re-selling it on eBay ‘for parts only’ to make up some of the loss. But flipping up the hood for the 56th time, I actually see a sliver of light, and realize that maybe there is something wrong with the top mirror. Unscrewing the hood reveals a severely shattered mirror, peices strewn throughout the top cavity, the logical source of the rattling. So what did I do? I glued the damn thing together, used a GWU business card as a splint, and sewed that thing up. Not the most elegant fix, I can assure you, but with a little polishing I thought it could work. And guess what? The shutter wasn’t stuck at all, it just needed a bit of elbow grease to get it going out of retirement (though the previous owner had dutifully noted the speeds were about 1/3 slow.)

But it worked, and with a renewed dose of optimism, I loaded the thing up and hit the street.

The first shot with the new rig, not bad for a 60-year old clunker

Some interesting signage

I waited forever for this kid to run through the light as he was shooting water at his buddy, and of course when it  finally happened, he sidestepped the beam as if on purpose. Though not the image I had intended to make, I still am oddly attracted to it, and for some reason I can’t shake the image of a Vietnam trooper wading through the jungle (as weird as that is)

Tested the MAT wide-open on this one. It’s no Hassleblad, it’s a bit soft, it’s got a healthy glow, but it’s a lot better than I expected and I have to say that I do like the character oozing out of that Yashinon.

Probably my favorite shot of the roll, Peirce was nice enough to let me shoot while he slacklined through Washington Square park. That reminds me, I have to send him his copy…

And last but not least, what would a new camera test be without a few shots of the VER? This weekend we walked him up to the Chelsea Dog run, and he could hardly contain himself. Lauren and I watched as the little man chased this terrier for 2 minutes straight, over hills and around rocks, complete with a wicked face-sliding spill that barely put a dent in the kid’s ambitions. Not surprisingly, Ollie needed a place to cool off after all the high energy calorie-burning, so I plopped him in the pool and did what any good father would do…DOCUMENT

I was so close to saving this one for a future Frenchie Friday, but it was SO good that I couldn’t resist. I mean look at that…LOOK! Straight Ed from the Lion King!