Yashica T3 / T3 Super
The Yashica T3 is one of those cameras that photographers pray to find when they go flea-marketing or visiting a Goodwill store. In fact, there is a category of lucky photographers who can excitedly share such stories of finding a Yashica T3 for incredibly great deals at such markets. This is because for a long time the Yashica T3 flew a bit under the radar despite being a really good camera.
As you might surmise, the Yashica T3 succeeded the Yashica T2 and was itself succeeded by the Yashica T4. The camera was manufactured by Kyocera and also marketed as the Kyocera T Scope. In appearance, the T3 very much resembles the T2. It has kind of a large, rectangular look with lots of hard corners. This as opposed to the slimmer, more elegant design of the later T4. The Yashica T3 added a couple new features over the earlier T2. The most notable was the addition of a waist level finder atop the camera that Kyocera called the N.A. Scope (New Angle). This top-down finder allows framing while holding the camera at waist level, or conversely while holding the camera upside down over your head for when you want to photographer over an obstruction. In this sense, the camera works similarly to the waist level finders commonly seen on medium format cameras. Even handier, the camera's top LCD screen has a focus indicator so even when you have the camera at waist level you can tell when the autofocus has locked on. This finder though only shows about 67% of the lens' field of view, so it is not terribly accurate at composition.
The other upgrade was to the T3's already stellar lens. The feature that makes this whole series of camera so desirable is the prime Carl Zeiss lens found on them. These lenses have earned their reputation for delivering excellent image quality with great sharpness and contrast. Images are crisp and clean even when shooting into direct light. When many photographers go after these cameras it is really the lens that they want most. So the upgrade then? The Yashica T2 used a 35mm f3.5, while the Yashica T3 has a 35mm f2.8. It may not seem like much but a 1/2 stop is a 1/2 stop. It is the fastest lens found on a camera in this series, even the later Yashica T4 went back to an f3.5 lens. How much of a difference you will see between this lens and the ones found on either the T2 or T4 is debatable, and when it comes down to it, it is really just going to be different flavors of excellent anyway.
The rest of the T3 is pretty barebones. The camera is meant to be fast and simple and it excels at that. Exposure is automatic. Focus is automatic. ISO setting is automatic. This leaves the user without any real manual controls but this is by design. The autofocus system on the T3 is pretty solid. It has a 16-zone system with a range of focus from 0.5m to infinity. A half press of the shutter conveniently locks focus at the current distance but there is not infinity focus lock mode unfortunately. The shutter is electromagnetic with a range of 1 second to 1/630 (another mild improvement over the previous T2's 1/500 top speed). As mentioned, ISO is set automatically by the DX code of the can and the camera supports ISO ratings of 64-1600. This would be a small critique by us since a couple of our favorite films are Velvia 50 and TMax P3200, but it is also not like this range of ISO makes it impossible to shoot these films either. It is important to remember that if no DX code is present on the film can, the camera defaults to ISO 100.
One last technical note about the Yashica T3 is that it is moderately well weathered sealed. Both the battery door and film door have o-rings to seal these chambers off from moisture. Also the buttons on the camera are somewhat sealed under rubber covers. The viewfinder and flash both have plastic protective covers as well. This camera is NOT waterproof, but it is pretty weatherproof and we'd have little qualms about slipping it out of pocket on a rainy Oregon day for some snap shots.
There were four different versions of the Yashica T3 produced:
- The original Yashica T3 (1988)
- T3D - same as the original but with a quartz date back
- T3 Super (1990) - added a continuous drive mode feature that allowed continuous firing while the shutter button was held down. Also known as the Kyocera T Scope 2.
- T3 Super D - same as the T3 Super but with a - you guessed it - quartz data back.
Blue Moon Camera and Machine llc
- sales@bluemooncamera.com
- (503) 978-0333
- (503) 978-0370
-
8417 North Lombard Street
Portland, OR 97203
All rights reserved ©2025, Blue Moon Camera and Machine llc