C41
Kodak Portra 400
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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The Yashica TL Electro (1968) is a manual-exposure, M42 screwmount 35mm SLR equipped with a TTL stop-down CdS light meter - a significant step forward from the entirely unmetered J-series bodies that preceded it. The shutter is a cloth horizontal focal-plane design running from 1 second to 1/1000s plus Bulb, with X-sync at 1/60s. Metering requires the aperture to be stopped down manually to the taking aperture before reading (stop-down TTL), which was the standard approach for M42 bodies without automatic diaphragm coupling to the meter.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
View profile →BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
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Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
Develop 35mm film
Labs in our directory that process 35mm film.
Before you buy used
Used prices typically run $40-120 depending on condition, included lens, and whether the meter has been verified. The TL Electro is less recognized by name than the TL Electro X (which benefits from the "first LED meter" distinction), so it can be underpriced relative to its mechanical quality.
About this camera
The first metered M42 SLR in Yashica's TL line - bridging the unmetered J-series to the LED-display TL Electro X.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm |
| Mount | M42 screwmount |
| Introduced | ~1968 |
| Shutter | ~1s - 1/1000s + B, cloth horizontal focal-plane |
| Flash sync | ~1/60s (X sync) |
| Meter | TTL stop-down CdS |
| ISO range | ~25 - 1600 |
| Modes | Manual only |
| Battery | 1x PX625 mercury (meter only) |
| Mechanical fallback | Yes (shutter operates without battery) |
Yashica's M42 SLR line evolved through the 1960s from the bare-bones J-series toward more feature-complete bodies aimed at serious amateurs who demanded through-the-lens metering. By the mid-to-late 1960s, TTL metering had become an expected feature on any mid-tier SLR, with the Pentax Spotmatic (1964) having demonstrated its commercial viability on the M42 mount.
The TL Electro (and the near-simultaneous TL Electro X with its LED display) represented Yashica's answer to the Spotmatic on its home mount. The company was simultaneously engineering the C/Y bayonet mount in collaboration with Zeiss, which would appear in 1975 and mark the end of Yashica's M42 development. The TL Electro line is thus among the last purpose-designed M42 SLRs from Yashica before the strategic shift to the Contax/Yashica system.
The TL Electro is historically relevant as Yashica's response to the competitive pressure created by Pentax's Spotmatic and the broader industry move to TTL metering. It does not occupy a particularly unique technological position - stop-down CdS metering was the standard approach of the period - but it shows the breadth of M42 SLR production during the late 1960s, a moment when the screwmount format attracted serious investment from nearly every major Japanese manufacturer.
For current film photographers, the TL Electro offers a straightforward metered M42 body at low cost. Its stop-down metering workflow is slower than open-aperture metering systems, but this is a shared limitation of all unmodified M42 bodies with TTL meters. The CdS cell is prone to drift or failure with age, so many users pair the body with an external handheld meter regardless.
M42 screwmount provides access to the full range of M42-mount lenses produced across Japan, Germany, and the USSR:
Stop-down metering means all M42 lenses, regardless of diaphragm-coupling design, work with the meter in the same workflow: set aperture, stop down manually, read meter, take shot.
Mercury battery substitution: the original PX625 mercury cell is no longer manufactured. Substitutes include Wein MRB625 zinc-air cells (accurate voltage, finite life) or an MR-9 adapter for standard silver oxide SR44 cells (minor voltage offset that may require exposure compensation).
BW
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
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Kodak Ektar 100 is a fine-grain C-41 color negative film with saturated color and high sharpness.
View profile →Yashica TL Electro
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