A Review and Teardown of the ‘S**t’ Yashica Y35 Camera

The Yashica Y35 camera was hugely hyped as a revival of an iconic Japanese camera brand and raised over $1 million on Kickstarter, but as backers have started receiving their cameras, reviews have been overwhelmingly horrible. The Vancouver, Canada-based Point&ShootClub published this 15-minute video review of the camera (Beware: it’s angry and has strong language).

Just as early backers have reported, Point&ShootClub found the camera to have poor build quality, unreliable/non-working functionality, an incompatible cable, non-existent “autofocus”, a “black-and-white” “film” that doesn’t actually shoot monochrome, and more.

“I regret the day I paid [for] this,” the reviewer states. “If film is dead, this s**t makes […] film even dead-er. I [would] rather buy a broken APS film point and shoot than this s**t. Literally, any camera is better than this. You can dislike my video, but seriously don’t even buy this camera.

“Worst camera of all time. […] [W]hat the devil on the earth? […] [T]his s**t is not ok.”

The conclusion is that the Yashica Y35 is a cheap toy camera that’s only worth giving to a child to play with — though whether it would hold up to the playing is another story — but the price tag of $150+ is quite steep for that.

To see why the camera is so horrible, Point&ShootClub followed up its review by disassembling the Y35 in this 25-minute video (warning: there’s strong language in this one too):

Both the camera and the “film rolls” are found to be mostly empty plastic shells containing minimal electronic components. Even the “lens” is simply an empty shell that’s just there for looks with a smaller cheap lens is hidden inside.

Inside the top plate of the camera, under a small circuit board, is an unusually heavy piece of metal that simply exists in the camera to give it some weight. Without the metal weight, the Y35 would feel even cheaper and lighter.

If you were skeptical of the Yashica Y35 Kickstarter and didn’t back it while it was the talk of the photo world, congratulations: you dodged a bullet with this one.