Testing, Testing...

Double-checking the EM

Apr 01, 2026

With our next jaunt on the ‘cut’ not far away, I’ve decided to take a slightly different approach to picture-taking this time. Rather than the ‘mostly film with some digital’ strategy of last year’s navigation on the ‘cut’, I’m aiming to switch things around, taking my dslr as the main tool this time.

Of course, going away entirely without film simply wouldn’t feel right. It’d be like going out dressed with only one sock on, or something. To this end, and to vary the creative possibilities a little, I thought I’d take along my Yashicamat EM.

Parton Kirk, final resting place of one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. If he could but see - the glorious view across Loch Ken from the churchyard.

I’ve owned this camera for more than half of it’s life, yet in all that time, I’ve probably put less than a dozen rolls through it. The main issue I’ve had with it, on the odd occasion I have used it in the past, is overlapping frames. It didn’t happen all the time, just often enough to put me off. I did send it to be fixed at the time, but the firm I sent it to put it down to years of wear and tear, washing their hands of it and effectively dismissing it as a bit of a basket case. At that point I took the moderately bold step of venturing into the realms of it’s mechanism myself, looking ‘under the hood’ so to speak, on the winder side (the leatherette is still missing from there). Well, I couldn’t see anything misbehave (at least as far as my inexperienced, layman’s eye could tell).

~So that was that,

And there it sat,

Perched, forlornly, on the shelf…

… Anyway, my recent strong urge to use a twin lens reflex again had me thinking about the EM once more, wondering whether there’s actually any hope for it. I took the side cover plate off again, just in case I had a flash of inspiration. Well, maybe not quite a flash, but one thing that I figured it might be is the toothed film advance wheel that runs on the backing paper to move the film forward. Like me and mine, this wheel’s teeth are probably rather worn, and were slipping on the paper (they were likely past their best when I bought the camera cheaply back in the early 90s). Could this be it?

In our garden on a rather dull early spring day.

In keeping with it’s advanced years, I figured that advancing the film slowly and gently may be the way to avoid this pitfall. The result - twelve well separated frames (albeit with somewhat uneven spacing). My first trial of the gently-gently approach can be seen in my earlier article on tabletop photography. The photos you see here are from a slightly more recent roll, confirmation that EM appreciates the gentler touch.

One other little foible, that’s taken me all these years to discover, is to do with focussing. In the famous words of Buzz Lightyear*, the lenses on their panel go “to infinity, and beyond!” Luckily it’s only slight and it seems they do so together, so I just need to remember to keep them in check when focussing.

Well, fingers crossed my luck continues while we’re away🤞🤞.

This view, and the two above, had very little done to them at the editing stage, just the usual gentle white/black point adjustment. The contrast is as you see it. The slight toning is essentially the result of the film’s base colour being inverted, with the hue of the latter two frames slightly tweaked to taste.

If it all turns out okay, I may treat EM to a stay at a better ‘health spa’ than before along with the skills of the Good Camera Doctor for a proper service (or, at least, as good as can be expected). Maybe even come away with a smart new leatherette suit, too. We’ll see what the future holds.

All b+w photos taken with the Yashicamat EM and yellow filter on Kentmere 400, then developed as normal in caffenol delta+.

(*One of the main characters from the animated children’s movie, Toy Story. My two sons loved this film when they were young.)

Thanks for joining me here on Faffy’s Fotos once again. This will likely be my last long-form post for a little while, as I’ll be away once again, navigating the canals. I may post brief updates from then in my ‘group chat’ for anyone who might be interested.