Lynx 14

I was going to name this entry Fast Glass, but I'll save that one for later.
The Yashica Lynx-14, in this case the Lynx-14E, does have some fast f1.4 glass.
For a 'compact' rangefinder I mean.
All my other cameras have f1.6 to f2.8 lenses which makes this the fastest of the lot.
Just what is a lynx anyways?
Maybe they should have called this camera the Cheetah!

I'm pretty sure a cheetah can out run a lynx.
As in fast?
Nevermind.
The camera does have some quirks.
The advance throw is on the long side:

It causes me some problems as the throw on a Nikon F body is shorter.
I sometimes think I've short advanced the film, but so far I haven't had any half frames or anything.
It makes up for it with the nice shutter release.
Oh so soft!
Don't really need that red shutter thingy as it's smooth as a baby's you know what.
Makes my Konica S1.6's shutter button seem ridiculously difficult.
The shutter release is so nice I accidentally clicked off a frame while riding the Flat Tire Earth Machine (FTEM):

The heart of this camera though is the lens, which is larger than a Nikon 50mm.
I suppose it should be since it also houses the quiet, nice sounding shutter.
Being used to the sound of a mirror clacking, these rangefinder leaf shutters seem a bit wimpy when it comes to shutter sounds.
Sometimes it doesn't seem as if I've even taken a picture.
The Lynx shutter is reassuring without being intrusively loud.
Very pleasant.
Back to the glass:

Pictures from Honolulu Night Market on Saturday.
The only strange thing is that halo on the last pic.
It also occurs in pictures when the lens is pointed almost directly into the light; I'll have to see how it does at the beach and at sunsets.
I didn't have batteries for the camera when I took those pictures but I got in a bunch of A640PX batteries today.
The original batteries were 1.35 volts while these are 1.5 so you have to adjust the ISO a stop lower.
The switch for the meter is in front of the camera:

Which is a nice thing since with some of these old cameras the meter is on all the time.
There is a display in the viewfinder that tells you if you are over or under exposed:

Nice little feature though it was okay working without it.
Sunny 16 don't you know.
The rangefinder spot is bit weak on my camera:

You can barely see the yellow spot and all bets are off under low light conditions.
The frame lines are parallax corrected, meaning they move when focusing, but still somewhat sticky hence my framing is sometimes off center:

On the bottom image, you can see the lens curvature though I'm not too worried about it.
The camera takes some nice pictures but I'll run some slow film through it to see how it really does.
What this all means is that I'll be looking for another one, maybe two, you know, as back ups.
Don't bid against me!
I got my Lynx for less than a hunsky though I followed one auction to finish and it just touched a century.
Still a good deal for a camera that can do what an SLR does, mainly excel at low light.
Needless to say, I'm totally digging this camera!
So there ya go, the Yashica Cheetah-14E.
I mean Lynx.