Mike Gammill , Sep 26, 2009; 09:00 a.m.
The Yashica D is likely least expensive among the Yashicamats because of its three element lens and separate shutter cocking and knob film advance, but still a decent enough picture taker. I find that my Yashica D delivers acceptable sharpness starting at f5.6 and by f8 it is very sharp. The other models, Yashicamat 124, Yashicamat 635, Yashicamat 124G all have 4 element lenes and a crank film advance that also cocks shutter at the same time. One caveat: for portraits these cameras do not focus close enough for really tight portraits. Also the perspective with their 80mm lenses is the same as using a 50/55 with 35mm. If you don't mind extra bulk, consider the Mamiya TLR system which has interchangeable lenses. The older C22 and C33 are the cheapest. The C330, which was the last model, also took interchangeable focusing screens. Therre is parallax compensation and lenses ranging from 55mm to 250mm.