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Despite a decidedly lukewarm reception in our community—and much mockery from the pro and semi-pro photographers out there—the Yashica Y35 camera and its digital ‘film’ cartridges has become an Internet sensation, raising many, many times more than the required funding to make it to market.
The company’s Kickstarter campaign was backed by 6,935 funders who together contributed HK$ 10,035,296 (about US$ 1.286M). And now, in case you missed the Kickstarter round, Yashica has put the Y35 on Indiegogo as well, to ensure that the project not only goes ahead, but that it comes with a few upgrades too.
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In case you’re not familiar, the Yashica Y35 digiFilm project aimed to create a digital camera that acts more like a film camera—complete with film winder and ‘film’ cartridges with different ISO ratings and alternative image characteristics. While many found this idea silly on the face of it, thousands more disagreed and poured their money into Yashica’s crowdfunding campaign, allowing the company to upgrade the camera’s specs a little bit.
Originally, the Y35 was intended to feature a 1/3.2in sensor, but that has been upgraded to a 1/ 2.5in sensor (still with the original 14MP pixel-count). The 35mm lens has also had a positive change in specification, going from f/2.8 to a four-element f/2.0 lens with a wider diameter and what the company promises is better image quality.
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There is a gallery of sample shots captured with a pre-production version of the Y35 camera—with its bigger sensor and faster lens—on the Kickstarter and Indiegogo pages if you’re curious. As for the production model, the camera is due to be delivered to crowdfunding backers in May of 2018.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)