My Yashica TL
My TL

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My Yashica TL is a recent acquisition, purchased for $25 as a parts camera from Pacific Rim.   It has the same kind of general shutter problems (and design) as the TL Electro which I inherited from my grandmother.   It's a curtain shutter that has a capping problem at higher speeds (1/60 second and faster) and occasionally the shutter and mirror jam.   Consequently I've never put film in it, but I haven't had it long enough to work on yet.

Features:   It has a match needle exposure meter (I miss one of these), shutter speeds to 1/500 second and a self-timer. The exposure meter has a nifty feature of turning off after the shutter release has been tripped to save your battery (which the TL Electro also does).

Drawbacks:   Some people would consider the match-needle meter a disadvantage, partly because they're more susceptible to mechanical damage from being dropped or jarred.   The maximum shutter speed of 1/500 second is clearly a drawback, but is typical of cloth curtain shutters.   The curtain shutter in itself is a drawback because they seem more apt to develop capping problems, which are supposedly impossible in the metal shutter design that the TL Electro-X has.   There is no mirror lockup knob, used with extremely short focal length lenses which protrude back into the camera body (I don't have one of those anyway).

More later:
When I attempt repairs on this camera, I will report more here.

Any information you think should be here is welcome.   Please email me.

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