10/19/2026
Sometimes you just get lucky. My first medium format camera is a Yashica-D. By all accounts it’s not a phenomenal 120 camera. However I have shot some of my favorite photos with it and I have always loved the very unique characteristics of the lens.
It can get really center sharp but the fall off is a lot, and I feel it does have a tendency to produce that swirly bokeh effect, which folks have strong feelings about.
I shot with it yesterday for the first time in a very long time. I enjoy the results. I loaded the second roll of Kodak VPS III that I had. It expired in 1993, and this roll was a little further gone than the other roll. So there was color dye breakdown bleeding in from the edges. Instead of even attempting to correct it out, I might as well let the color shift work in the image. No way I could’ve foreseen this yesterday, so really sometimes it’s just about working with what you got. Happy accidents and dumb luck always factor in as well.
