On November 2005 I went to Tokyo. I found a GREAT antique camera when I was going to visit the Asakusa Senso-ji temple. The store is located on the street right in front of the entrance to the temple, on the right side sidewalk if you are looking to the temple. The store is rather small but it is cramped with tons of antique cameras. The owner of the store only speaks japanese but I managed to bargain for a Yashica A.

I bought this camera because I was on a tight budget (as usual) and because it was not black. At the beginning I thought that the camera was dark gray, but some Windex revealed a nice light gray color. I only payed for this camera 3000 Yen.



I cleaned the lenses and viewer.

I needed a lightmeter for this camera and I wanted one that I could attach to the camera. The first one that I found was this very broken SIXTOMAT. The glass was detached from the housing, the needle was bent and the meter belt was loose. I payed 1 €, and it came with a leather case and instructions in German.



The Color Finder is used for the movies. Since I do not read German, I do not know how to use it.


The glass glued in place. There was a lot of glue on the frame. I carefully removed it with a scrapper. 

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The axis of the coil was out of place and bent. With lots of care I put the axis in place and straightened it. It suddenly started to work but since the needle was bent, the whole thing needed calibration. I used another lightmeter to calibrate it. This second light meter, a Réalt, was bough a day after the first one for 3 € and proved to be a better option to use with the Yashica A.

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The reading of the two meters was way different. Something else was wrong.


This belt was loose and out of place. By trial and error, i managed to fond the right tooth. I took me a whole afternoon.

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Then came the turn of the calibrating knob. This knob has a little metallic ball inside that was broken. I found one of the same size that came from a ball bearing of one gyroscope of a Boeing (Don't ask!)


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This Alpex attachment was on one of my junk boxes. I used it to attach one lightmeter to the Yashica.

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I trimmed it to attach it to the flash socket of the Yashica.

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This disk was attached to the rear of the Réalt lightmeter

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This solution makes no definitive modifications to the light meter.

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Assembled. I regret cutting that disk!

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Attaching a lightmeter to the camera proved to be pretty practical but bulky .