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Yashica T Zoom

Popular Photography will review the Yashica T4 Zoom in the March issue. In an e-mail I asked Dan Richards to name the best lens of any point & shoot zoom his magazine has tested and he named the Contax TVS III (of course!). He suggested the Yashica as a cheaper alternative, so I take it the review will be a positive one.
 
Finally got my scanner "fixed." It was the computer, not the scanner, of course. Attached are first shots with T4 Zoom on 100 speed slide film (Kodak pro Ektachrome SW). Framing isn't the best, still getting used to the difference between what the viewfinder shows and what I get on film. The swan, I thought, was a good test of the metering system; the backlit scene at the fountain with the sun just outside the frame showed little flare; the shot of the Capitol Building in Austin shows some 28mm distortion of the little fountain pond, but nothing offensive, in my view. The lack of exposure control is offset by a good metering system, a really nice lens, and the sub-$200 cost.
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Some people have commented that the flash is not too good on the T Zoom, but I find it to be excellent. I recently took some shots with flash on Fuji Provia 400F slide film. The skin tones came out perfectly despite the white clothes of the subject.

S&le images can be seen here:
http://alkiratech.tripod.com/photogallery/id53.html

Sincerely,

Craig
 
I agree that the flash is good with 400 speed film, but mine is a bit limited with 100 speed transparency film. See attachment, shot with Elite Chrome 100 to e-mail to my wife on vacation so she'd know the cat is still busily driving me nuts knocking the magazines and papers off the coffee table...
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Tom, what you are seeing is not a limitation of the Yashica T Zoom, but a problem of on-camera flash per se. Even if you took that shot with a Nikon F5 and the most expensive Nikon Flash on the camera, or a Contax N1 and a TLA 360 on the camera, it would look the same. The reason is because there is so much depth in the scene. The flash illumination drops off according to the inverse square law as you get further away from the flash tube. I see in your photo that the cat's head and the newspaper are very well exposed. The Yashica has done a good job of flash exposure. What's wrong with the photo is the poor overall illumination of the whole scene behind the cat, and that can only be solved by a different lighting technique, such as bounce flash. There is nothing wrong with the T Zoom's flash as such. Any "on-camera" flash would make exactly the same photo. Even the Contax T3. This issue can only be solved by off-camera flash, bounced off a wall or off the ceiling, or a supplementary slave flash strategically placed to illuminate the background. Faster film helps because it puts the background ambient light two stops closer to the flash illumination of the subject. That goes for any camera.

Regards,

Craig
 
Craig, of course you are right on every count. Thanks for the reminders. I had all that drilled into me in photo courses in college more than 40 years ago and should have at least remembered about faster film bringing the background up closer to the flash illumination of the subject. No excuses, but I seldom use flash except as fill any more. My studio lights have been in a closet for more than a decade. My chief complaint about the little in-camera flashes is the difficulty of avoiding red-eye in typical room illumination. Usual solution is to turn the flash off and move my subject to where there is some light coming through a window and use a reflector to fill in the shadow side. Thanks again. Regards, Tom
 
Hi Tom. You're welcome for the reminders. I have to remind myself regularly that there are limitations in the technology, and that the technique is more important than the technology.

I agree completely about on camera flashes. I only use them as a last resort, and then only when there isn't much depth in the scene. As long as the bulk of the scene is within a similar range of distance from the camera, and the ambient light isn't too far below the flash level, we can get an acceptable result which is better than no shot at all.

I acknowledge your very long experience as a photographer, and make my comments with all due respect.

Sincerely,

Craig
 
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