Yashica 44 w/ 35mm Film

Anyone here use 35mm film in a Yashica 44 enough to figure out how to advance the film so there isn’t overlap but also no huge gaps between the frames.

Dan Daniels CLA’d a beautiful Yashica 44 for me. New leather too. I have a 100ft spool of film for it but haven’t gotten around to respooling a roll or two. I’d like to experiment with 35mm film.

So, do you reset the counter before you shoot the film? How to advance so not to overlap or have huge gaps? Does the door need to have light seals installed? I did put some backing paper behind the film pressure plate to block out light from the little window. Anything else anyone wants to point out. Here is the camera:

Dan did a great job with this camera. Everything works really well. Nice lens too ( tested it once before the CLA ).

I don't think any of the Yashica TLRs take 35mm film. There were outfits designed for Rolleiflex and Rolleicord cameras that allow 35mm film to be used.

The 44 is a 127 camera. Remove a few pieces in the feed side of the camera and a 35mm roll will fit. There are adapters to place on either end of the roll of 35mm film.

I have a Ricohflex VII and a 35mm insert. It's really hard to use though, focusing is a bear. Fun as can be though.

I have run 35mm without an adapter. You need to just guess advance. You can roll the film into some backing paper which I have done too. Results are worth it, very unique look.

ic-racer said:

I don't think any of the Yashica TLRs take 35mm film. There were outfits designed for Rolleiflex and Rolleicord cameras that allow 35mm film to be used. View attachment 290770

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The Yashica 635 was built as a 120/35mm camera. It came with a 35mm adapter kit. I used one for about five years in the 1970's, as a wedding camera. While the Yashikor lens did a credible job with 120 film, I was never pleased with the results using 35mm film, especially Tri-X.

I assume you are respooling 35 onto a 127 spool. The only gap would be what the camera normally leaves for the 127 film. You'll end up with 24x44 images and will get 15 to a roll cut to the same length of a 127 roll. Hopefully the camera's pressure plate is sufficiently strong to hold just the thickness of the film without the paper backing firmly against the frame.

You can remove some parts in the upper chamber then a 35mm film canister will fit. I would then spool the leader in the lower take up area and advance film. Hence the need to know how far to advance so frames don’t overlap. But respooling onto 127 paper could help with that problem.

wjlapier said:

You can remove some parts in the upper chamber then a 35mm film canister will fit. I would then spool the leader in the lower take up area and advance film. Hence the need to know how far to advance so frames don’t overlap. But respooling onto 127 paper could help with that problem.

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The camera is crank wound. You'll need backing paper. Respool the film onto a paper backing and it should work.

Based on what has worked for me in the past for 6x9 (and assuming you want to advance approximately half that amount), but complicated by the much smaller diameter of a 127 spool, I'd start with three full knob turns per frame at roll start, and cut half a turn each third frame to compensate for film building up on the spool.

One way to be more confident would be to sacrifice a roll. Load the film, but don't close the door. Mark the film at the cassette edge of the frame gate plus a couple millimeters, and wind the mark to the takeup edge plus a few millimeters, while noting the turns of the knob. Repeat for each frame until the film comes taut in the cassette. You will want to put a sticky note or similar on the camera to keep track of the number of frames expended.

If your camera has an automatic counter that counts spool turns, you're still stuck with manual by mark/count or by guess; if it counts by driving a roller from the film, you may be able to use the counter if you can be sure the film can drive the right roller (this does work for the 220 back in my RB67, but that's a bigger roller than most TLRs, whether 120 or 127).

The Rollei baby uses a roller on the feed side to measure film travel. The Primo Jr/Sawyers IV uses a toothed roller on the takeup side to measure film travel. The Yashica 44 uses a geared counter to count rotations of the takeup spool, counting fewer turns as the spool fills up. The 44A simply uses the red window to count frames. Yours looks like the 44 (I don't have a 44A at hand to compare but I do have six or seven 44s handy). You're right about the backing paper--it's part of the design of the counter mechanism and running film without the backing will throw the counter mechanism way off. Because the 44 doesn't use a follower to measure the thickness of the film and backing paper, the fact that 35mm film isn't the correct width (46mm) shouldn't affect the counter too much. Running without the backing paper is much more of a crapshoot. You'd want to not reset the counter (leave it in free-running mode without any numbers in the window) and count the clicks between exposures. I would imagine that after a lot of film you might get the hang of it.

Edit: sweet-looking rebuild! (Glad it got a good home...)

Second edit: Just for the record I dug out a 44LM and I see that it uses the same mechanism as the Primo Jr. So Yashica tried three different frame counter solutions in their 44 evolution.