Yashica Mat-124G
For not that much more than the Lubitel 166U a Yashica Mat-124G is an ideal and inexpensive TLR for a beginner. At roughly 120 USD from most places you upgrade to a more solid feeling body, get auto-stopping winding mechanism, capability of shooting both 120 and 220 film, and a light meter. Also the waist level finder opens more smoothly than the snapping open of the lubitel.
The Yashica Mat resembles more closely to the Rollei design. The Yashica uses a bellow focusing as opposed to a helical focusing. That is to say that the two lens on the front move back and forth as you focus, as opposed to turning against each other. The lubitel mentioned earlier uses a helical focusing as you can see the two lenses are geared together and turn with each other. This makes the camera less likely to become misaligned between the two lenses.
The Yashica can use both 120 and 220 format by means of a rotating pressure plate. This pressure plate not only gives more pressure for 220 films which does not have a paper backing, but also sets the frame counter and winding mechanism properly. When film is loaded and lined up, and the back is screwed tight, the winding mechanism is active. You simply wind the film forward until the camera stops by itself at frame one. You wind the handle back until it stops; this cocks the shutter. The shutter release is on the front in the form of a cylindrical button that will also accept a standard shutter release cable. When you take the shot you wind forward until the camera stops, then wind back to cock. And so forth. Depending on the type of film loaded, when you get past frame twelve (120) or frame 24 (220), the winding mechanism will keep going without stopping. This will allow you to wind the remainder of the film onto the take up spool. The counter will reset when you open the back to remove the film.
The lens used on the Mat-124G are a Yashinon 80mm f/3.5, and an 80mm f/2.8 for the viewing lens. The lens can also take filters or a hood, they are however harder to find than most other cameras. They use a 30mm bayonet connection, often called a B30 mount. They are also usually twins like the lens themselves as opposed to a single filter. So obtaining filters for this particular camera may not be the easiest task.
One of the main things I liked about the Yashica was the way shutter and aperture values were selected. As opposed to having a ring on the front that you had to move levers up and down on, the Yashica uses two knobs instead. As you turn these knobs the shutter speed and the aperture value are shown in a little window at the top of the camera, making it easy to set while still looking down at the camera.
The Yashica can also use an electronic flash via a PC sync socket above the viewing lens. You can mount the flash to the accessory shoe on the side, but you may find it easier to use a flash bracket instead. The Mat-124G also has a 10 second timer noted by a small level on the bottom with a red dot. This is activated by pulling, then it'll start going off once the shutter is pressed. Another feature of the Mat-124G is a light meter. The light meter at the top of the camera can automatically tell you whether or not your shutter and aperture combination will receive enough light at the set ISO sensitivity. The ISO range is rather limited from 100 to 400, however if you good with numbers should not be hard figure the exposure for 800 speed if you get it matched for 400. The light meters are powered by 1.3v mercury cell batteries. Mercury batteries are now illegal in most countries due to their toxicity and corrosiveness. The Mat-124G ( G just denotes the camera used gold connectors for the light meter and battery ) I had purchased did not come with a battery, so when I used a Duracell PBX625 battery it still did not work. I was informed that the foam inside the camera may have invaded the area of the light meter, or that the electrical contacts could have become undone. It's considered common problem with the Yashica Mat-124G, other than the winding crank going bad.
Rest assured the view screen is much easier to focus on than the Lubitel 166U, you can focus quite easily with the Mat-124G. Here is an image I captured on the Mat-124G with some Ilford HP5 400 speed black and white film.
The Mat-124G is probably the best bangs for the bucks for someone looking to get a TLR that's user friendly and pleasing to the eye. I did end up returning mine to afford the next camera in the lineup. The Mat-124G I had from the same camera shop (for around 200$) , not only had the dead light meter that I mentioned above, but also a defective winding crank that would cause the frames to either be spaced too far apart, or too close to each other. While it was a nice camera, and I did not mind the light meter, I did want something that wasn't going to waste film with its defect. I heard the winding mechanism breaking is common, but I've yet to run into someone other than myself to say that theirs had the problem.
