The Minister needs glasses
One of the problems with using old cameras for the first time is that you never know if they are fully functional until later when you get the negatives back. Such is the case with my Yashica Minister D. I knew that there was something up with the focus because the rangefinder did not match the lens distance markings. I decided the safe bet was to use the markings on the lens and not the rangefinder which seemed so out of whack with what I knew the distances to be. Well it turns out that the lens markings were equally wrong or the lens itself has been damaged in some way I will need to have a closer look. In this shot I’m pretty sure that I had focused near infinity and had used a small aparature which should have resulted in everything in the scene being in focus so it seems likely that it is the lens itself. It shall go into ‘the pile’
Some more images that didn’t turn out
January 26th, 2015 at 12:46 pm
How sad – those are supposed to be fine little cameras. I have a couple of high quality cameras I really want to work but need work beyond my rudimentary abilities.
I wonder if one or more elements have become misaligned? Though if the distance scale is wrong as well, then the problem might be hard to sort out – maybe someone (like me) tried to fix it and put it back together all wrong.
January 28th, 2015 at 12:28 pm
At some point I will try to figure it out but outwardly nothing seems amiss
February 27th, 2015 at 1:32 am
I have a Yashica Minister D too. It’s a nice example and it shoots sharp photos with no problems. I did partially lift the top cover to clean the viewfinder which restored the clarity and patch. Sounds as though you may have a fault with yours. As they are pretty cheap on ebay you could consider buying another. Here are a few shots from mine using Fujifilm Superia 400:
https://fractionsoflight.wordpress.com/category/yashica-minister-d/