I don’t generally require nearly two years to write a review, but in fact, I did start this one in October 2019. The passage of time has given me new perspectives on the venerable Yashica Mat-124G TLR camera, and in those two years, much as changed about the used film camera market — especially when it comes to decent medium format cameras. Given this camera’s stature in the medium format universe, and given its amazing 16 year production run, from 1970 clear until 1986, it constitutes both a popular and a worthy choice — at least when you can find one to buy.
The Back Story
I wasn’t planning to buy this camera; I wasn’t even looking for a Mat-124G. It had entered my thoughts only at the very start of my medium format fascination early in 2019, alongside other cameras I’ve now since purchased (Hasselblad, Rolleiflex, Mamiya C-Series), most of which were mentioned in a B&H “Explora” blog post of a few years ago. It was technically the Yashica-Mat that was mentioned in that post, not the Mat-124G specifically, but nevertheless, it was perhaps inevitable that one or the other would eventually join the family as well.
Cameraworks in Colorado Springs (refer to my Vendor Directory) happened to put this camera on their Facebook page as the used camera of the day on a Saturday morning in October 2019. I just happened to catch the post a few minutes after they put it up, and called about it before making the 45+ minute trip south. Alas, someone was already looking at it and considering buying it; they said they’d call me back. That customer did not buy it, the shop did call me back, I said I’d be right down.
What I found when I arrived was a great camera in what appeared to be great physical condition for US$200. Back then, decent Mat-124Gs went for around that price point, with more distressed models often coming-in lower, based on my research at that time. Today, in August 2021, prices have roughly doubled (or more) as demand for quality, usable medium format cameras has continued to rise, but absent any more supply. As I finish-up this review, average condition examples are around US$400, with retail used camera dealers charging closer to US$500, and excellent examples with accessories like a case reaching nearly US$700. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether these lofty prices are worth it.
Regardless, both then, and now, the Mat-124G doesn’t tend to come-up all that often in my local area, despite the large number of them that were made, so it was sort of a no-brainer to take my particular one home, back on that Saturday morning in October 2019.
Pleasingly, everything worked, including the meter — which often doesn’t on these cameras. The meter had been recalibrated to use a 1.5 volt battery as well; that was a plus.
I meticulously clean any used camera gear that I buy, and this one was no exception. Beyond being a germaphobe, I supposed it’s a bonding ritual. Regardless, the very nice looking camera nevertheless shed a lot of dirt onto my cleaning rag, although it didn’t clean-up quite as well as I would have liked. The leatherette covering just didn’t want to stop looking ever so slightly grubby. Some of the old cameras I’ve cleaned-up end-up looking nearly new; others seem to want to exude their age and experience. This camera was definitely of the latter type.
A touch-up of some of its black paint (an easy job, but not something I usually bother with) helped a bit. Like rubbing a dab of concealer onto an aging face, it hid some of the evidence of the passage of time. I then loaded it with film, and spent the following day consuming the roll, and processing it straightaway. More on that in the sections that follow.
Since then, I’ve run several rolls through the Mat-124G. Regrettably, I haven’t used the camera as much as I’d like, but I could say the same about most of my cameras. That’s the challenge when you seem to switch back and forth between being a photographer, and being a camera collector, mostly favoring the latter; as I finish this review, there are over 100 cameras here vying for my attention — a number I quote not to brag, but to convey the breadth and depth of my own insanity. I’ve never been a collector of things; not coins, not stamps, not books, not anything. But film cameras? Well, I found my weak spot.
Be that as it may, let’s explore the Yashica Mat-124G.
The Camera
As far as the camera itself is concerned, it’s fairly typical by any TLR standard. Arguably, the Yashica TLRs have their inspiration in the late 1940s/early 1950s Rolleiflex line, and unlike the Mamiya C-Series TLRs with their unique design, bulky proportions and interchangeable lenses, the Mat-124G doesn’t stray from the basic Rolleiflex formula — down to the Bay 1 (or Bay I if you prefer, a/k/a Bay 30) mounts on the Yashinon f/2.8 80mm viewing and f/3.5 80mm taking lenses. Reportedly, the Yashinon taking lens is of the Tessar-type design, with four elements in three groups.
The shutter, a Copal-SV, is a reliable, Japanese-made leaf type that provides speeds up to 1/500, and offers the ability to change the speed to any you choose, regardless of whether the shutter has been cocked, or not. The inclusion of a delayed action escapement with a small winding knob under the taking lens means that you have a decent mechanical self-timer at your disposal.
Now that flash bulbs are no longer really a “thing,” it’s sort of a moot point, but the shutter also provides a selectable X or M sync option for the PC flash terminal. Of course, X stands for Xenon, meaning electronic flash units, while M stands for Medium — as in medium-speed flash bulbs. Should you use a flash, obviously keep the selector set at X.
Shamelessly copied directly from the Rolleiflex are the shutter speed and aperture controls. Like my Rolleiflex Automat MX, the adjustments are made through a pair of knurled knobs on either side of the space between the taking and viewing lenses. And just like the Rollei, the aperture and shutter speed scales are displayed on the upper side of the viewing lens where you can see them from the top.
What’s not quite like the vintage Rolleiflex cameras I know is that there’s a lot of black plastic on the Mat-124G. It makes sense given the vintage of the camera that this would be the case, but it gives the Mat-124G a sort of “modern-yet-vintage” design aesthetic that is uniquely Yashica.
While it’s not completely unique by any means, one of the nevertheless differentiating features of the the Mat-124G is the built-in, coupled, match-needle style exposure meter; the meters found on later Rolleiflex cameras are implemented in a different style and manner. Using it is quite simple; first, ensure that the film speed is properly set using a wheel on the side of the housing, then simply point the camera to face your subject, and adjust the aperture and/or shutter speed settings as you see fit, and to achieve the depth-of-field and/or motion capture (or blur) effect you desire. Once the thin red needle and the notch on the wider yellow needle are aligned, you’re good to go.
As with any reflected light metering situation, you may need to make your adjustments with the meter (in this case, that means the entire camera) pointed toward the area of the scene that has the specific desired lighting environment you want to expose for, otherwise, the meter may be skewed by bright backgrounds and such. In challenging lighting environments, a traditional handheld or spot meter will likely provide better, more accurate results.
One issue is that just like the meters on later Rolleis, the ones on Mat-124G cameras frequently no longer function. They may simply be completely dead, but even if ostensibly operational, they may not work properly, and part of the reason is that they were designed to use a PX625 mercury battery — and mercury batteries are no longer legally available in many countries, including the US. The other factor is that these batteries operated at 1.3 volts, and had a very flat, consistent output curve over the life of the battery, meaning they provided that 1.3 volts more or less precisely over the entire life of the battery, before they simply died a rapid death.
Most modern button batteries of any type are 1.5 volts, for a start, and the voltage difference means that when applied to a CdS-cell exposure meter like the one in the Mat-124G, the results are inaccurate by a couple of stops typically. Worse, depending on the chemical composition of the battery (alkaline, silver-oxide, zinc-air, etc.), they don’t necessarily have consistent output curves over their life. They may start out at 1.5 volts, then eventually hit 1.3, and then proceed to go even lower, meaning that the meter’s accuracy is all over the place over the life of the battery. Not good.
There are a variety of “solutions” available, including recalibrating the meter to use a 1.5 volt battery — a process that had been been done to my camera. Cameraworks threw-in and installed a common 625 alkaline battery for me when I purchased the camera, but alkaline batteries are among those that drop in voltage over their lifespan, so the meter will become less accurate as the battery ages. The meter does work however, and it’s delivering on-point exposures. It just means I’ll have to keep an eye on its accuracy, and know to replace it well before it’s actually fully dead.
The Mat-124G is designed to accept either 120, or the no longer available 220 film. The pressure plate inside the back can be positioned to indicate which type is loaded, and small tabs on the side of that plate press against buttons when the back is closed (or don’t press them, depending on which way the pressure plate is set), which the camera uses to adjust the exposure counter between 12 and 24. These act as “keys” of a sort, basically. Oddly, in my camera, the adhesive label that shows through a window in the pressure plate is applied upside down. If you position the plate for 24 exposures, it’s keyed for 12, and vice-versa. It took some comparing photos in the manual and of other examples of this camera online to figure out what the heck was going on, but it’s clear the label is just simply upside down. Why? Who knows. You can’t even access that label without disassembling the back (including remove the leatherette covering), so I’ll be accepting that weird peculiarity vs. fixing it.
The right side of the camera (as you’re holding it) has the folding film advance crank; an indicator of which exposure count it’s set for (directly above the crank; this is what’s set by the keying in the pressure plate I just mentioned); and, the exposure counter itself (upper right corner). In this shot, you can also see the film speed setting wheel (silver in color) on the side of the meter housing.
The opposite side has the two film spool loading/unloading knobs; the focusing knob; and, the battery holder for the meter (dark circle, lower right). The control arrangement is identical to my Rolleiflex Automat MX, right down to the film type reminder dial on the focusing knob. And, like the Rollei, there’s a depth-of-field (DoF) scale adjacent to the focus knob, so it’s easy to see at-a-glance what you can expect in terms of sharp focus range.
The upper part of the camera has the standard TLR feature: the waist-level viewfinder; lift it to open, press it down to close — no folding required. There’s a pop-up magnifier for more accurate focusing (something I use on all my TLRs), as well as a so-called “sports” viewfinder. This is something I personally find completely useless on any TLR, but your mileage may vary of course.
In short, the camera is a typical TLR experience end-to-end, and moving between my Rolleiflex and this camera is seamless and simple.
The Experience
Shooting with the Yashica Mat-124G couldn’t be easier. Open the viewfinder, set your desired aperture and shutter speed (using the built-in meter, or a separate one as the case may be), frame your image, focus, press the shutter release, wind. Unlike my Rolleiflex, you can adjust the shutter speed across its full range with the film wound to the next frame, which also tensions the shutter mechanism.
Getting an image focused is often the hard part, which is why I use the magnifier on every single shot so I can see clearly see what I’m doing. Depending on the situation, I may then fold the magnifier away, and do the final image framing in the more traditional waist-level manner.
Because the taking lens goes from f/3.5 clear up to f/32, and because the shutter speed is as fast as 1/500 of a second, you get a considerable amount of exposure flexibility. And because the camera has a leaf shutter, as long as you’re stable and holding the camera well, you can shoot handheld down to 1/30 of a second pretty safely.
All of this is to say that between the nice range of apertures and shutter speeds, you can use a wide variety of film speeds in the Mat-124G across a variety of lighting conditions. As someone who’s gotten accustomed to using ISO 400 film pretty much all the time (well, in 2019 when I wrote that sentence; now, in 2021, not so much), I really appreciate the flexibility that gives me; I can shoot ISO 400 even in bright midday sun, which is something that really isn’t possible in my Rolleiflex. Its smallest aperture is f/22, but additionally, if you’ve wound the film and tensioned the shutter in the process, you can’t set the shutter speed any faster than 1/250 unless it was set to 1/500 before you wound it — which is rarely the case. Those two total stops make a big difference.
The leaf shutter in the Mat-124G also means that the camera will flash-sync at any shutter speed, which is a nice convenience. To meter for flash, I use my Gossen Sixtomat F2 meter, and like my other cameras, I attach a Godox TT600 using a simple flash bracket that attaches to the tripod mount and connects to the PC sync port on the camera.
After running a roll of film through the camera immediately after I got it and immediately developing it at home, a few things stood-out — not all of which are ideal:
- Gummy, Gooey Light Seals
First, it was immediately apparent that this camera needed a light seal kit. I hadn’t quite noticed as I was cleaning the camera that this Mat-124G is new enough that it came from the factory with foam seals, and that they’d long-since deteriorated to nothing more than a sticky mess with time. From what I’ve read, some earlier examples have yarn seals, but regardless, I wanted to address this, despite the lack of evidence that the deteriorated seals were actually causing a light leak. I ordered a set from Gray at USCamera (see my Vendor Directory) for $8.00, and the replacement was straightforward. - Registration Issue
After the first roll, and a second, there’s some sort of film registration issue. From the first frame to the last, the left edge of the exposures slowly moves from dead center to slightly into the film rebate. It’s only around 1.5mm to 2mm, and not serious. My guess is that the take-up spool holder is slightly off-kilter, but it’s not bothersome enough to worry about. - Sharpness
So enough complaining about what’s not ideal, to one thing that knocked my socks right off: How incredibly sharp the images from this camera are. They may not be as sharp as the images from my Hasselblad, for example, but they’re really good, and I can’t quite explain it. It really starts to make the US$200 I spent on the camera seem like an utter bargain.
The Accessories
One of the things about TLRs is that they’re pretty well self-contained, and at least in the case of Yashica, not very many accessories were even offered for the camera. One brochure for the camera from back in the day lists only some flashes, two grades of close-up add-on lenses (echoes of the classic Rolleiflex Rolleinars), filters, a hood and a cable release. Perhaps not for the Mat-124G specifically, but Yashica also made auxiliary telephoto and wide angle lens attachments as well, and I do own examples of those, and they work well with the Mat-124G.
Here are some excerpts:
I like how the excerpt above refers to the Mat-124G as “large format” for some reason. Here are the “special accessories” — or so it calls them:
Interestingly, not even mentioned was a camera case, which Yashica did offer. I wanted that — plus a lens hood. Like many cameras, TLRs are subject to lens flare, so a hood is nice to have, and you can easily find cheap plastic Bay 1 lens hoods on Amazon for under US$10 that are advertised to fit Rolleiflex, Mat-124G and other cameras. The problem is that they mount on the inner bayonet, meaning you can’t use them at the same time as a filter. The original factory lens hoods from both Yashica and Rollei go on the outer bayonet, leaving the inner one open. That means you’ll pay a premium for them, their condition may not be great, and they could be hard to find. But, if you use contrast filters regularly with black and white shooting, as I do, they’re a virtual necessity.
I’d already purchased a filter and hood set for my Rollei, and I could have used the Rollei hood. I had read, however, that the outer bayonet on these otherwise “Bay 1” cameras wasn’t exactly the same as the ones on the Rolleiflex, and I assumed that the Rollei hood would not fit. Turns out that at least with my camera, that’s just not true; it fits fine, as do the Bay 1 filters and Rolleinar close-up attachments from the same kit. Getting the hood on and off is a little bit fiddly, but then, it is on the Rolleiflex as well since it barely clears the aperture and shutter speed knobs on both cameras.
Regardless, I ordered an actual Yashica lens hood and a case from KEH, and they sort of finish-off the kit for this great little camera.
The case, in fact, is pretty striking, with its patent leather exterior. It provides good protection while offering open access to all the controls, winding crank, and so on. The entire top and front panel portion of the case unsnaps from the top, and rotates forward out of the way with ease — and closes back up with equal ease and speed. My only complaint is that the case makes for a bulky appearance, but cases are about protection more than an aesthetic statement.
As for other accessories like filters, I will gladly use my Franke & Heidecke (Rolleiflex) goodies, including my Rolleinar aux lenses, black and white contrast filters, and UV filters with both the Mat-124G and my Rolleiflex, and get a little more mileage out of those investments in the process.
The Results
As I mentioned earlier, one of the things I just can’t get over is the incredible sharpness of the images from this little TLR. Following are some of my favorite shots to-date from this camera.
NOTE: Several of the black and white images from the first roll were improperly agitated during development, and as a result, the left and right edges appear light. This is a really good advertisement to use inversion agitation, and not simply the so-called “swizzle stick” agitation method that I was experimenting with on the roll in question.
I’d like to think that the quality of this camera is self-evident from this small array of black and white shots. At some point, I’ll get around to shooting a roll of color film in the Mat-124G, but I would expect it to perform equally well — especially given the Tessar-type design of the taking lens, and the modern coatings applied to it.
In Closing
As you probably surmised from reading this far, I’m a fan of this little camera, and I now understand why they’re so popular with so many people. Given the 16 year long production cycle, a ton of these cameras were made, tons of them still survive, and if you can find one in good, operating condition at a good price, I’d say it’s worth the investment — especially given the incredible sharpness of the images.
Happy shooting.
