My first time out with my Yashica Mat 124G on the streets of Cambridge with a twin lens reflex was great fun. Loading 120 film was a challenge — I have essential tremor in both hands, which makes anything remotely fiddly frustratingly challenging — but I got there in the end. I’d worried that using a camera without image stabilisation might be difficult, but the weight of the TLR and holding it against my chest helped far more than I expected.
I shot using the Sunny 16 rule and with 400 ISO Tri-X and HP5+ the light was good enough to use smaller apertures and zone focusing for most shots. The Yashica Mat’s screen proved better than I’d anticipated and I only missed focus occasionally, mostly on closer subjects.
The experience couldn’t be more different from shooting with my usual Leica Q3 28mm, where I tend to get close, shoot from the hip, and crop later. Using the TLR’s waist-level viewfinder people largely ignored me or seemed unthreatened, and I was so absorbed viewing the left-right reversed image that I was oblivious to others around me. All in all, a thoroughly positive experience that’s added a new layer of enjoyment to my street photography.
