The Yashica 635 is one of my favourite cameras. I own three TLRs, and after using all of them for a year or more, the Yashica 635 is the one I reach for first. It is not the prettiest. It is not the rarest. It does not have the brand prestige of a Rolleiflex or the build quality of a Hasselblad. But it works and it keeps working, and the images it produces are reliably sharp from the first frame to the twelfth.
This is the in-depth review. Specifications, handling, the 35mm dual-format feature, the famous sprocket-hole photography that this camera enables, the comparison with its near-identical sibling the Yashica D and a real-world test shoot at the Severn Bridge.
A quick credit before we start: the sprocket-hole 35mm photo I use to demonstrate the dual-format capability is by Nic Phelps (@bleedinirisphotog on Instagram). He takes excellent sprocket-hole work and the example he provided shows what the camera can do in 35mm mode much better than my own attempts ever have. Worth a follow if you are interested in that kind of work.
What it is
The Yashica 635 is a 6x6 twin-lens reflex (TLR) camera produced by Yashica in Nagano, Japan, from 1958 to 1971 (with some late Yashinon-lens variants continuing into 1972).
Yashica was founded in 1949 as Yashima Seiki Co. Ltd., a Japanese precision engineering company that began making camera parts for other manufacturers and quickly moved into producing complete cameras. The company became Yashica Co. Ltd. in 1957 and went on to become one of the most successful Japanese camera makers of the 1960s, with a deep range of TLRs, 35mm rangefinders and later SLRs. The Yashica TLR line ran from 1953 through to 1986, when the long-running Yashica-Mat 124G (the final TLR model) finally went out of production.
The 635 is almost identical to the Yashica D, another Yashica TLR from the same era. The two cameras share the same body, the same lenses, the same shutter, the same focusing mechanism and the same general specifications. The only meaningful difference is that the 635 has an additional knob on the upper left side of the body for rewinding film. That knob exists for one reason: the 635 can shoot 35mm film as well as 120, and 35mm film needs to be rewound back into its cassette at the end of the roll. Hence the name: 6 for 6x6 medium format, and 35 for 35mm.
If you do not have or want to use the 35mm adapter kit, a Yashica 635 is effectively a Yashica D with an extra knob you will never use. This matters for the second-hand market: a 635 without the adapter kit should be priced similarly to a Yashica D, not at a premium. The premium is for the dual-format capability, which requires the adapter.
Specifications
Taking lens: 80mm f/3.5, originally a Yashikor (three-element triplet design) on most production examples, with a Yashinon (four-element Tessar design) on later examples produced from September 1970 onwards. The Yashinon is the sharper of the two and is preferred by enthusiasts. Check the engraving around the front element to see which one your camera has.
Viewing lens: 80mm, originally f/3.5 (matching the taking lens), later upgraded to f/3.2 on Yashinon examples for a brighter viewfinder image.
Shutter: Copal MXV leaf shutter built into the lens assembly, with speeds from 1 second to 1/500 plus B. The “MXV” designation indicates M-sync (for flash bulbs), X-sync (for electronic flash) and V (Vorlauf, the German term for self-timer delay). Because it is a leaf shutter, flash sync works at every shutter speed (no curtain-sync limits like on focal-plane shutter cameras).
Aperture: f/3.5 to f/22, controlled by a ring on the front of the lens assembly.
Format: 6x6cm on 120 film (12 frames per roll), or 24x36mm on 35mm film with the conversion kit fitted.
Focusing: Knob on the left side of the body, throw of about 180 degrees from minimum focus (1 metre) to infinity.
Viewfinder: Waist-level finder with flip-up magnifier and ground-glass focusing screen.
Flash sync: PC socket on the front of the lens assembly, with both M and X sync.
Weight: 1151g (about 2.5 lbs), comparable to a Rolleicord and lighter than a Rolleiflex.
Build: Metal body with black leatherette covering and chrome trim. Built solidly, though not to the absolute standard of a German TLR of the same era.
The 35mm adapter kit
The Yashica 635’s defining feature is its ability to shoot 35mm film. To do this you need the dedicated conversion kit, which consists of:
- A pressure plate for the 35mm film
- A take-up spool adapter
- A cartridge adapter that holds the 35mm cassette in place
- A mask assembly that fits over the viewfinder to show the smaller 35mm framing
- A spool spindle to drive the rewind mechanism
The kit is rare on the second-hand market and is now collectible in its own right. A complete kit (with all the parts and the original packaging) can cost as much as the camera body. Without the kit, the 635 cannot shoot 35mm and is effectively a Yashica D.
If you do have a kit and you load 35mm film, you get vertical 24x36mm frames within the 6x6 image area. The camera is shooting through the same 80mm lens but only exposing a 35mm-sized portion of what the lens projects. There are separate frame counters for 120 and 35mm operation, and the rewind knob on the upper left of the body engages the 35mm cassette for rewinding at the end of the roll.
The 80mm focal length, which is moderate-wide on 6x6 medium format, becomes a short telephoto on 35mm (equivalent to a 120mm lens on full-frame digital). This makes the 635 in 35mm mode genuinely useful for portrait work, where the longer apparent focal length and the shallower depth of field at f/3.5 produces flattering results.
Sprocket-hole photography
Where the Yashica 635 becomes genuinely interesting is in what happens if you fit 35mm film WITHOUT the dedicated mask assembly. This is the sprocket-hole technique.
A 35mm film roll is, despite the name, made entirely of light-sensitive emulsion across its full width. The sprocket holes punched into the edges are there to engage the wind mechanism of a 35mm camera. The emulsion runs from edge to edge of the film, including the area around the sprocket holes. In a standard 35mm camera, the gate masks off everything except the central image area, so the sprocket-hole region never gets exposed.
The Yashica 635 in 6x6 mode has a much larger image gate than 35mm. If you load 35mm film through a 6x6 camera (with appropriate hacks to make the film transport work), the larger gate exposes the entire width of the 35mm film including the sprocket holes. The result is a panoramic-style image with the sprocket holes visible as part of the photograph.
This is a look that some photographers actively pursue. The sprocket holes become a visual element in the image, sometimes used for visual interest, sometimes as a deliberate statement about the film medium itself. There is a small but dedicated community of sprocket-hole photographers, and the Yashica 635 (along with a few other 6x6 cameras adapted for the purpose) is one of the canonical tools.
Personally I have not pursued this approach. The look does not particularly appeal to me, and the work required to load 35mm film into the camera without the proper adapter is finicky. But the option is there, and the camera is genuinely well-suited to the technique if you want to try it.
Nic Phelps’s work on Instagram (@bleedinirisphotog) is a good place to see what is possible if you commit to the technique. His sprocket-hole frames have a quality that the standard 24x36mm cropping cannot match.
Handling
The Yashica 635 handles like a TLR from the late 1950s, which is to say slowly and deliberately.
Loading: Take-up spool goes in the top chamber. Fresh roll of 120 film goes in the bottom chamber. Pull the paper leader up across the back of the camera and into a slot on the take-up spool. Wind on with the right-hand knob until the start arrow on the backing paper lines up with the red mark inside the body, then close the back and turn the locking knob. Continue winding (watching the small window on the body) until the “1” appears, which is when the camera clicks to a stop at frame one.
Shooting: Compose through the waist-level finder. The image is reversed left-right, which takes some getting used to. Focus with the left-hand knob. Set aperture and shutter speed on the front of the lens assembly (small dials on either side of the lens block, with the current values displayed in a small window at the top of the lens assembly).
Firing: Cock the shutter with one lever on the lens assembly. Fire with a separate button. Two distinct controls, which makes accidental firing rare and makes multiple exposures easy.
Advancing: Push a small button on the body to release the wind lock, then turn the wind-on knob until it clicks to a stop at the next frame. The Yashica’s frame counter is a mechanical click-stop mechanism, not a red window. This is more convenient than the red window approach but is not perfect. I have occasionally got slightly larger gaps between frames than expected, suggesting the click-stop mechanism is not always precise.
Removing: At the end of the roll, the wind-on knob will turn freely past the last frame and you will feel the paper leader pull off the supply spool. Continue winding until all the paper has wound onto the take-up spool, then open the back and remove the exposed roll.
The waist-level finder
The Yashica 635 has, by a small margin, the dimmest waist-level finder of any TLR I own. The ground glass is not particularly bright. The fresnel underneath does not boost the image as much as more modern aftermarket screens. In dim light the viewfinder gets noticeably dark very quickly, making focusing harder than it needs to be.
Some of this is age. The mirror behind the viewing lens has degraded over 60 years and is no longer reflecting as much light as it did when new. The ground glass has accumulated dust and small marks. A thorough clean would help. An aftermarket bright screen would help more, though I have not yet investigated whether bright screens are available for the 635 specifically.
The flip-up magnifier is essential. It pops up from the top of the viewfinder hood at the press of a small lever and lets you put your eye close to the ground glass for precise focusing. Without the magnifier, accurate focusing on this camera is genuinely difficult.
The left-right reversal of the TLR viewfinder is something that takes time to internalise. After a year and a half with the 635 I no longer think about it consciously when shooting static subjects. When tracking moving subjects or trying to compose quickly, the reversal still catches me out occasionally and I find myself turning the wrong way to follow the action. Prism finders that flip the image correctly exist for some TLRs (Bronica, Hasselblad, Mamiya), but I am not aware of one for the Yashica 635.
Comparison with my other TLRs
I own three TLRs at the time of writing this review: the Yashica 635 (this one), a Rolleicord III (a German TLR from 1950-1953, separately reviewed) and a Lubitel 166B (a cheaper Soviet TLR, not yet reviewed).
The Rolleicord III has the brand prestige and a Schneider Xenar lens that is technically sharper than the Yashica’s Yashikor. But the Rolleicord I have has scratches on the front element that cause flare in bright light. The single-lever shutter cocking and firing is fiddlier than the Yashica’s separate controls. And the Rolleicord weighs about the same as the Yashica without offering an obvious advantage in image quality.
The Lubitel 166B is a much cheaper camera, lighter, with a plastic body and a triplet lens. It produces nice images in good light but lacks the build quality and ergonomic refinement of the Yashica.
The Yashica 635 sits between them. Better-built than the Lubitel, more usable than the Rolleicord, with a perfectly adequate lens and a sensible control layout. None of the absolute attributes (sharpness, brand prestige, exclusivity) are top of the pile, but the overall package is the best of the three for actually getting on with the work.
The shoot
For this review I took the 635 to the Severn Bridge, the original 1966 suspension bridge over the Severn estuary (with the Second Severn Crossing visible in the background from where I was shooting). The location has interesting structural lines and good visual contrast between the engineering and the natural landscape.
Loaded with Fomapan 400, a cheap Czech black-and-white film that I use for testing because it costs about half what Ilford or Kodak films cost and is consistent enough to reveal camera-related problems without confusing them with film-related issues.
Frame 1: A wide shot of the path running underneath an interesting tree, with the bridge visible in the background. Metered at f/10 at 1/100 second.
Frame 2: The Second Severn Crossing in the distance, framed with the original bridge supports in the foreground.
Frames 3 to 8: Various compositions around the bridge area. Aperture variations from f/8 to f/16. Shutter speeds mostly 1/250 or 1/500 to handle the bright overcast light.
Frames 9 and 10: A nicely weathered log at the edge of the path, with shallow depth of field at f/8 to separate the log from the background.
Frames 11 and 12: Final compositions of the bridge.
The 12-frame limit on 120 film is one of the constraints you learn to work with on medium format. Coming from 35mm where you have 36 frames per roll, the discipline of 12 frames per roll is genuinely tight. You think more carefully about each composition. You do not waste frames on bracketing. You do not take “just in case” shots.
The results
The Fomapan negatives came back sharp, well-exposed and free of any obvious camera-related issues. No light leaks. No focus problems. No frame-spacing oddities. The 635 did exactly what I expected it to do.
The Yashikor lens is sharp in the centre and softens gently towards the corners, which is the typical character of a triplet design. The microcontrast is good. The tonality is even. The corners are not as crisp as you would get from a four-element Tessar lens (such as the late Yashinon variant, or the Schneider Xenar on a Rolleicord), but the difference is only visible if you are looking for it.
For everyday photography, the lens is more than adequate. For the highest-end work where you need the absolute sharpest corners, a Yashinon variant of the 635 (or a different camera) would be a better choice.
Verdict
The Yashica 635 is a great TLR. Reliable and well-built without being over-engineered, capable of producing sharp 6x6 negatives across a wide range of subjects. The 35mm dual-format capability is a clever feature even if you do not use it. The price on the second-hand market (£60 to £120 for a working example without the 35mm kit, £150 to £250 with the kit) is reasonable for what you get.
If you are looking for your first TLR, this is one I would recommend without reservation. It is more forgiving than a Rolleicord and more useable than a Lubitel, and produces results that hold up against any other 6x6 TLR I have shot through. The lack of brand prestige is a feature, not a bug; you can drop one of these on a job site without worrying about damaging an expensive collectible.
Mine is going to stay in my regular rotation for a long time yet.
What’s next
After this video I went on to shoot the Rolleicord III as a direct comparison piece. The two cameras have similar specifications and similar prices, but the practical difference between them surprised me. Read that review if you are weighing up the choice between a Yashica TLR and a Rolleicord.
If you have a Yashica 635, comments are open as always. If you have a 35mm adapter kit you are willing to part with at a reasonable price, my email is in the channel description.