The Yashica Y35 has been receiving a whole lot of traction and updates as of late, with the team behind the project being very responsive to comments and to backers. But recently, they’ve taken a short break due to some further developments. After announcing their stretch goal of getting the camera’s lens to f2, they also announced in a recent Kickstarter update that the camera may have a metal body and that they’re exploring the possibility of a larger camera sensor. These are some of the things a lot of photographers have been complaining about, and I honestly feel that if the camera had an APS-C or full frame sensor but still used the DigiFilm format then less people would be complaining on the internet about a product they haven’t yet tried.
According to the recent Kickstarter Update:
We have just uploaded 4 videos of our team taking pictures with the Y35 working prototype and those sample pictures taken from it. Please rest assured we do have a prototype that is working!
For the last couple of days, the whole YASHICA team has been spending all extra effort during the weekends to make sure we work out the best solution in delivering our first stretch goal: F2. As well as exploring the possibility of adding a larger sensor or metal body which most backers are excited about. This may result in oversight and delayed in responding your comments, we are really sorry about this and will commit being as responsive as we can in the future, but we kindly ask for your patience if sometime we can’t answer your question immediately.
From the looks of it, it seems like they’re facing a whole lot of backlash. To be very fair, the Yashica Y35 seems like an experience that no other digital camera is offering on the market. But I think at this point Yashica should be asking for more money. A plastic point and shoot camera with two digiFilms for $100 and change is a very fair price point. Updating the lens to an f2 option is an even better one. But making the body metal and giving the camera a larger sensor that is at least Four Thirds in size should command much more money. It would be worth well over $650 and Yashica should charge accordingly to ensure they can get all the parts, get everything shipping, and actually properly fund a successful project. Otherwise, the entire thing could backfire on them. At the moment, the project has over $1,000,000 US in funding.
I’ll be the first to admit that I wanted a Yashica point and shoot film camera and it would’ve had me spending a whole lot more than I did when I pledged for this project. But unfortunately, we’re just going to have to wait even longer for what Bellamy Hunt has up his sleeve.
