Yashica Electro 35 GS

Yashica Electro 35 GS Overview

The Yashica Electro 35 GS is a variant of the wildly popular Yashica Electro 35, the first ever camera with full electronic automatic exposure. The GS model you see above also sports gold-plated electrical contacts and boasts a “Color Yashinon” 45mm f/1.7 lens which is completely identical to the standard (greyscale?) Yashinon but was named as such by their marketing department to capitalize on the growing popularity of color film at the time.

The Electro 35 GS also features a cadmium sulphide light meter capable of handling film speeds from ISO 25 to 1000 which, unfortunately, is designed to be powered by a now-discontinued (and banned) mercury battery. The electromagnetically controlled stepless shutter can handle a range of speeds from 1/500 to 30 seconds but can also be switched to manual bulb mode for even longer exposures, if necessary.

I’ve actually wanted a Yashica Electro 35 for a while now but could never justify the price until I found one at the thrift store for only a few bucks. It was very clean, in good shape (with the obvious exception of a severely dented filter ring), and came with a Yashica-branded strap made in West Germany and the bottom half of a Japanese-made leather case.