C41
Kodak Gold 200
Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
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The Yashica Half 17 (1960–1963) is a half-frame 35mm camera that differentiates itself from the Olympus Pen series and Canon Demi competitors with an exceptionally fast lens: the Yashinon 32mm f/1.7, at a time when most half-frame cameras offered f/2.8 or slower glass. The combination of a half-frame format (17×24mm, 72 exposures per 36-exp roll) and an f/1.7 lens makes the Half 17 a capable low-light camera by the standards of any era.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the half-frame-35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
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Kodak UltraMax 400 is a versatile consumer-grade ISO 400 daylight-balanced color negative film with T-grain emulsion, delivering warm Kodak colors, fine-for-speed grain (PGI 46), and wide exposure latitude. Currently in production and available globally as a single-roll and multi-pack.
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Before you buy used
About this camera
Yashica's entry into the half-frame camera race of the early 1960s. The Half 17 packs an unusually fast Yashinon 32mm f/1.7 lens into a compact selenium-metered body — the fastest lens in any mass-market half-frame camera of its era.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm half-frame (17×24mm, 72 exp/36 roll) |
| Lens | Yashinon 32mm f/1.7, fixed |
| Mount | Fixed |
| Years | 1960–1963 |
| Shutter | Programmed AE, ~1/30s – 1/500s, leaf shutter |
| Metering | Selenium, program AE |
| Focus | Zone focus |
| Weight | ~360 g |
| Battery | None (selenium powered) |
The half-frame format arrived in Japan in 1959 with the Olympus Pen (designed by Yoshihisa Maitani), which proved that photographers would accept a smaller negative in exchange for double the shots per roll. Yashica responded in 1960 with the Half 17, competing directly against the Pen EE and Canon Demi lines.
Yashica's differentiation was lens speed: the Yashinon 32mm f/1.7 offered a full stop advantage over the Pen EE's f/3.5 and a meaningful advantage over the Pen EES f/2.8. This made the Half 17 more suitable for available-light indoor photography — a genuine selling point in the era before fast consumer films.
Production ended around 1963, superseded by updated Yashica half-frame models and the expanding Olympus Pen EES series. The Half 17 remained in service with photographers who had bought one through the mid-1960s.
The Yashica Half 17 represents the early-1960s Japanese camera industry at its most competitive: multiple manufacturers rapidly iterating on the Olympus Pen's half-frame concept, each trying to differentiate with lens speed, body design, or features. The f/1.7 Yashinon is genuinely fast for a 30mm-class lens and produces clean images even in difficult light.
For collectors, the Half 17 is a tangible artifact of the half-frame format's initial adoption wave. For film shooters, it remains a capable, battery-free camera that doubles the shots from any roll.
Fixed Yashinon 32mm f/1.7 lens, non-interchangeable. Filter thread available (varies by unit; some take 40.5mm). Selenium meter requires no battery and degrades gracefully — many 60-year-old examples still meter accurately in bright light but lose sensitivity in low light.
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
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