This is SLR camera that will be very much useful for beginers or students who want to learn basics of the photography. This is a full manual SLR camera, hence the photographer has to adjust all the settings before he takes the picture. So he can learn more about photography.
Focussing
This is a fully manual camera (manual exposure, manual focus, manual film loading and transport). Focussing screen on this camera is matte screen (split-image) and the view finder is slit image micro penta prism.
Lens
This camera has y/c (Yashica/Contax) mount. You can use all the lenses that have y/c mount. This camera handles the Contax (Carl-Ziess) lenses as well.
The lens mount is metallic mount that means durability is higher than that of plastic mount.
Metering
It has center-weighted average metering which is pretty accurate and reliable. There are 3 LEDs in the view finder viz: + 0 - that represent over, correct and under exposer respectively. This uses LR44 (2 nos) batteries. However, this camera works even without batteries.
Shutter
It has mechanically controlled vertical travel focal plane shutter that has speeds from 1/2000 - 1 second with bulb setting. The film rails behind the shutter are made up of metal.
General
It has flash sync of 1/125 sec or slower that means u can use higher aperture values to get more depth. Most of the SLRs in this price tag or even more has flsh sync lower speeds than this camera.
It has sync terminal for to check for flash ready signal the view finder when u use yashica flash units.
It has cable release socket and self timer for 10 seconds delay (both are mechanical).
Summary
I purchased this camera in 1994 with ML 50mm f 1.9 lens and Vivitar 2800 flashgun. It never let me down since that date. Infact I leant lot from this camera. I also had Tokina 35 - 105 mm lense when I went to England in 1996.
Pictures were compared from Nikon N50 and EOS 500N with this little SLR and found Yashica is best at Ooty whether where EOS let all the pictures down. My camera still works without any problems. What u expect from an SLR at this price? SO, I must say this is a great value for the money.