Fujica GW690 – A big shot from Fuji Photo Film Company

March 8, 2020March 8, 2020Chris and Carol Leave a comment

The Fujica GW690 6×9 Professional camera by Fuji Photo Film Company. Mine was made around 1978 and it’s still going strong today. It’s one of the most affordable (and plentiful) larger medium-format film cameras available.

The Fujica is a fixed-lens rangefinder that takes (6) D cell batteries – it could take 6 batteries as it’s big enough but there’s no built-in light meter and the shutter is mechanical so no need for batteries.

3 lbs 2 oz (1,1414 grams) without film.

This is a big, no crazy large camera with a super sharp EBC Fujinon 90mm f/3.5 lens. The lens is made up of 5 elements in 5 groups. The leaf-shutter is a Seiko #0 with B, 1-1/500.

Yashica TL Electro X ITS with a huge Tomioka 55mm f/1.2 and the ‘Beast’.

My TL Electro X ITS with its super-fast Tomioka 55mm f/1.2 lens is big and heavy but not Fujica heavy. The Yashica weighs in at 1,019 grams which is heavy enough. Size and weight do not make a camera great – the size of the negative and the quality of the optics are the foundation of true greatness and this camera delivers

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Direct scan of the 6x9cm negative. No post-production.

Direct scan of the 6x9cm negative. No post-production.

I’m very pleased with the camera and lens and I’m equally pleased with the Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros black and white film. If you’re looking to get into the 6×9 format then I recommend you give the Fuji a try.

Thanks for stopping by! – Chris

http://www.ccstudio2380.com

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

In the Shop – New This Week!

March 2, 2020March 2, 2020Chris and Carol Leave a comment

Hi all! Here’s a look at what’s new in my camera shop this week – you’ll find my shop at http://www.ccstudio2380.com

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You’ll find much more rare, unique, and hard to find camera and photogear at http://www.ccstudio2380.com

I ship almost worldwide and my shop is hosted by Etsy for safe and secure shopping. Thanks for stopping by! – Chris

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

In the Shop – New This Week!

February 19, 2020February 19, 2020Chris and Carol Leave a comment

Hi all! Here are some new additions in my camera shop which can be visited at http://www.ccstudio2380.com – check it out!

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This is just a small sample of what’s available in the shop. Thanks for stopping by! – Chris

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

Happy SUNday! – Recent Arrivals

February 2, 2020February 2, 2020Chris and Carol Leave a comment

Some new additions to our already crowded Yashica family of cameras.

Our all-time favorite Yashica SLR.

*** Yashica TL Electro X ***

This one is from April 1973 and was made in the newly opened factory in Hong Kong.

Hard to find Yashica Electro AX – second to the last M42 screw mount lens bodies.

This is the only early Yashica SLR with a leatherette insert on the pentaprism. This one was made in November 1973.

Yashica D TLR from late 1966.

Some of these will be appearing in our shop at http://www.ccstudio2380.com in the coming weeks as well as some other arrivals.

Thanks for stopping by and have a beautiful day! – Chris

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

Yashica TL Electro X ITS – Integrated Technology System

December 27, 2019December 27, 2019Chris and Carol 1 Comment

Have you ever wondered what the ‘ITS’ stood for? For most people, probably not – but if you’re a Yashica Fanatic probably yes.

Yashica TL Electro X ITS from 1973

Undated sales brochure for the TL Electro X ITS. By the way, the marketing people had the name ‘Tomioka’ removed from this cover image of the lens – it’s the big empty space on the left side of the lens ring.

After years (yes, years) of searching almost everything Yashica published I’ve come to the conclusion that the intent of the marketing behind this camera was to promote Yashica’s first real system 35mm SLR. No, it doesn’t have an interchangeable back or viewfinder like the Canon F-1 and the Nikon F, but it did have a host of quality lenses and accessories. Oh, and no motor drive.

So ‘ITS’ most likely means ‘Integrated Technology System’ since the TL Electro X was advertised as having a brain – a built-in IC brain with an electronically controlled focal-plane shutter and electronic LED exposure control.

Mint set from September 1973 with the later Yashica (Tomioka) Auto Yashinon-DS 50mm f1.4 lens. Take note of the writing on the box about electronic photography.

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In later years when Yashica teamed up with Contax and Zeiss to develop the Contax RTS – ‘Real Time System’.

Thanks for stopping by! – Chris

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

Fast Glass from Canon & Yashica

December 20, 2019December 20, 2019Chris and Carol Leave a comment

A couple of true heavyweights from Canon and Yashica-Tomioka.

Canon F-1 from 1978 and the Yashica TL Electro X ITS from 1973

The Canon FD 55mm f 1.2 lens is from 1972 which makes it a rather early FD lens. It lacks the S.C. or S.S.C. markings indicating that it’s not coated or at least the marketing people decided not to promote that feature. The Tomioka Optical made lens is an Auto Yashinon 55mm f 1.2 model from very early in the production run. Its serial number puts it about 1968 and it was the 769th made.

The Canon lens weighs 551 grams vs the Yashica’s 332 grams.

There’s a big difference in weight between the two lenses yet they are both equals in maximum aperture. The Canon takes a 58mm filter and the Yashica uses a 55mm filter.

I hope to be able to do a side by side test of these two lenses using Fotodiox adapters on my Fujifilm X-Series mirrorless digital camera. Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by! – Chris

Studio Camera: Fujifilm X-A10

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

Macro Monday – Monster Glass

November 11, 2019November 11, 2019Chris and Carol 2 Comments

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One of the finest fast lenses ever – well pretty close anyway. Made by Tomioka Optical for Yashica (and others) this ultra-fast 55mm f/1.2 lens is a perfect match for the Yashica TL Electro X ITS that it’s mounted on.

Thanks for stopping by! – Chris

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

Yashica M42 Timeline – update 9.23.19

September 20, 2019September 23, 2019Chris and Carol 6 Comments

Yashica’s M42 screw mount 35mm SLR cameras were super successful and in some cases, groundbreaking. Yashica was known as a “Pioneer in Electronic Cameras” during the 1960s and 1970s with the TL Electro-X being the first electronically controlled SLR camera. My good friend and fellow Yashica collaborator Paul Sokk ( YashicaTlr.com ) and I have studied Yashica’s serial numbering system as it applies to their 35mm SLRs that used the universal M42 screw-in lens mount.

These dates represent the earliest finding of an individual model based solely on their serial numbers – not necessarily their release date. In some cases, the dates are still fluid as there is still the possibility of finding a stray in the wild that would prove an earlier production date.

Yashica often included a month and year in the first 3 or 4 digits of the camera’s serial number. By decoding these numbers Paul and I have come up with the following list.

Penta J 6/1961
Reflex 35 3/1962
J-3 2/1963
J-5 3/1964
J-P 8/1964
J-4 4/1965
TL-Super 4/1966
J-7 11/1966
TL 11/1967
TL Electro-X Type 1 10/1968
TL Electro X Type 2 7/1969
TL-E 6/1969
ITS 12/1970
TL-Electro 4/1972
Electro AX 3/1972
FFT 7/1973

In some cases, the dates are from cameras that appeared in sales brochures and user manuals. We have a high degree of confidence that these dates are correct and that they reflect a true chronology of these cameras as of this post.

Here’s an example of a Yashica serial number during this period –

(81200636) 8 = 1968, 12 = DEC, and 00636 = 636th made that month.

The serial number on my Yashica TL Electro-X Type 1

If you’ve found a camera that exists outside of these start dates, please feel free to let me know and if you have a serial number that you’re unable to decode send it my way. You can contact me at ccphotographyai@gmail.com

Thanks – Chris

Please respect that all content, including photos and text, are the property of this blog and its owner, Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Yashica Sailor Boy, Yashica Chris.

Undiscovered Yashica!

September 14, 2019September 17, 2019Chris and Carol 2 Comments

Well, “undiscovered” might be a bit of a stretch but at least unrecognized and undocumented as best as I can tell.

The very well known Yashica TL Electro-X but with a twist – no gothic “Y” on the pentaprism. No big deal really but it brings up some interesting questions. My good friend Paul Sokk (www.yashicatlr.com) and I have for years spent some of our free time exploring Yashica’s serial numbering system in hopes of decoding the numbers into some type of a recognizable date (if there was one to be decoded). Along the way, this version of the TL Electro-X would occasionally pop up.

Here’s the camera that’s now a part of my collection.

The very familiar Yashica TL Electro-X except it’s just a bit unfamiliar and slightly different.

Rear view of the Yashica TL Electro-X Type 1.

The serial number on this Yashica is 81200636. Here’s how it decodes: 8 = 1968, 12 = Dec, and 00636 is the sequence number for that month (December) assumed to start at 00001. Pretty simple once you’ve looked at hundreds of serial numbers.

This camera it turns out is from the first batch produced during a three month period of production (Oct-Dec 1968). I’ll refer to this as the TL Electro-X Type 1. When Yashica started making this camera again in July 1969, it saw a few changes – most noticeably the “X” was made larger and was now red, they dropped the hyphen between Electro and X and the pentaprism got its familiar gothic “Y”. I’ll call this second coming of the camera the TL Electro X Type 2 (pictured below).

TL Electro X Type 2

The camera did receive one operational change as the “FP” flash socket was added on the T2 which was not available on the T1. The other changes are mostly cosmetic and I would guess these subtle tweaks were driven by the marketing department although there could have been problems with obtaining parts or production issues.

So if these changes didn’t affect the operation of the camera then why were they done? I don’t know yet and I may never know but up to this point in time this version of the camera went unreported even though it appeared in almost two years of advertising by Yashica! It was hidden in plain sight.

Contributor Jens Erik from Denmark sent me this ad from April 1973. It shows the T1 (lower right corner) and T2 together in the same ad along with the newly released Electro AX.

yashica1973-4x1+x2

Is it just a version of the original or is it truly a different type? Because there were visual and production changes made I’m calling it a different type – TL Electro-X T1.

I’ll be sharing a few more studio shots of this new Yashica soon so be sure to check back. Oh by the way, since Yashica only produced the Type 1 for a short time they’re a little hard to find on auction sites, actually quite rare when you start looking for one. Compared to the Type 2 which was in production from at least July 1969 to the end of the run in 1975, you’re looking for a camera with less than 5,000 made against hundreds of thousands made.

Check your collection… maybe this rare Yashica is hiding in plain sight!

Chris

Unique Yashica TL Electro-X from Denmark – Update 1

September 11, 2019September 11, 2019Chris and Carol Leave a comment

I’ve added some changes to my original post. It appears that there are two versions of this popular camera – the Type 1 and Type 2. I’ll share another post soon to cover the details. – Chris

Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris

Many thanks to reader Jens Erik at http://www.jebsign.dk for sharing a photo of his Yashica TL Electro-X with me recently. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it appears that a distributor of Yashica cameras and photo gear (Kirk) in Denmark had a rather neat twist on this popular SLR. Here’s the ad that ran in 1969 –

1969 April, Yashica TL Electro-X

Here’s Jens Erik’s Yashica – his TL Electro-X matches the one depicted in the Yashica ad from 1969 and it clearly shows that the “X” is black vice the typical red and that the gothic “Y” that would normally be on the pentaprism is “missing”.

tlelectroxdk An example of an early version of this popular Yashica. The lens is not the lens that would have been on the camera at the time of its release. I’ll call this version the Type 1.

Updated info as of September 2019. It now appears that…

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Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris

Yashica cameras and so much more!

Category Yashica TL Electro-X

Fujica GW690 – A big shot from Fuji Photo Film Company

The Fujica GW690 6×9 Professional camera by Fuji Photo Film Company. Mine was made around 1978 and it’s still going strong today. It’s one of the most affordable (and plentiful) larger medium-format film cameras available.

In the Shop – New This Week!

Hi all! Here’s a look at what’s new in my camera shop this week – you’ll find my shop at http://www.ccstudio2380.com

In the Shop – New This Week!

Hi all! Here are some new additions in my camera shop which can be visited at http://www.ccstudio2380.com – check it out!

Happy SUNday! – Recent Arrivals

Some new additions to our already crowded Yashica family of cameras.

Yashica TL Electro X ITS – Integrated Technology System

Have you ever wondered what the ‘ITS’ stood for? For most people, probably not – but if you’re a Yashica Fanatic probably yes.

Fast Glass from Canon & Yashica

A couple of true heavyweights from Canon and Yashica-Tomioka.

Macro Monday – Monster Glass

Yashica M42 Timeline – update 9.23.19

Undiscovered Yashica!

Well, “undiscovered” might be a bit of a stretch but at least unrecognized and undocumented as best as I can tell.

Unique Yashica TL Electro-X from Denmark – Update 1