My favorite camera of all time -- the Yashica T4 Super

I'm not a big photography buff, having attended only a couple of classes on photography.  I also do not have the patience to lug around DSLR-style equipment.  I have always owned compact cameras that are lightweight, easily portable, and offer only a little, if any, manual control.  But don't get me wrong--I used to really enjoy taking pictures with my main focus being composing the shot.

At the recommendation of a colleague at work, I bought a Yashica T4 Super, for, IIRC $135 back in 2002.  I gave the camera away a few years ago because the battery door broke and it was going to cost me $75 to get it fixed, and also I thought film was going out of fashion.  Big mistake because of all the junk that I have gotten rid of over the years, I really really miss my T4 Super.

Some of the things I really enjoyed about it were:

• Superb aesthetic design.
• A Carl Zeiss 35 mm f/3.5 lens that took very sharp photos with amazing color accuracy.
• Lightweight at ~7 oz (200 gm) and compact while still very easy to hold.
• Ability to imprint date on photos in a variety of formats.
• An absolutely awesome top-level viewfinder which allowed taking photos from waist level.
• Infinity focus/landscape mode.
• Decent battery life.
• Weatherproof.
• Red eye reduction that worked very reliably.

There was a slight learning curve because the shutter release button was ultra sensitive (i.e. the shutter would release while you were trying to get it to focus), but once I learned how to operate it the results were awesome.

I have never had another camera that I liked so much.  The Yashica T4 embodied all of things that I cared about and nothing more.  It showed that the designers cared about and put a lot of thought into what they were doing.

I have owned several point-and-shoot digital cameras but they have all had one issue or another -- too big, too heavy, pictures not as good, view finder/LCD display not as good, shutter lag, etc.  Not to mention every single one of them was way more expensive than the T4 Super.

At this point, my smartphone is my only camera.  I have lost my passion for taking photos altogether and mostly only take pictures that are required for documentation (e.g. reporting car damage to insurance) rather than taking pictures for fun.

I guess I'm getting old, because I tend to use the phrase "they don't build them like they used to" a little too frequently.  The current state of the economy means companies have lost their passion to build great products and instead focus on financial engineering and other interesting ways of making money such as quality (mis)management.

Cameras I have owned

Listed in order of purchase.

• Canon Owl (36 mm film)
• Canon ELPH (APS film)
• Kodak DC240i (1.3 MP digital)
• Yashica T4 Super (36 mm film)
• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W1 (5 MP digital)
• Leica DLUX 4 (10 MP digital)

I don't currently own a camera, other than what is available in my smartphone.