Tag 35mm

The Yashica YE & YF – a definitive history

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My good friend Paul Sokk would argue that nothing about the history of Yashica could ever be “definitive”. Yashica no longer exists and its previous owners (Kyocera) could care less about the history of the company that it killed off back in the late 1980s. But that’s where Paul really shines – he’s always researching and searching for that extra crumb of information that leads to the next crumb that eventually leads you to the cake.

The cake, in this case, is the latest addition to his amazing website. Paul deftly guides us through the complicated maze that was Yashica and details its relationship with the Nicca Camera Company and the wonderful Leica copies that were produced during the 1950s. Many of the conclusions that Paul describes are found nowhere else on the web and to his credit, no detail is too small or unimportant to look at.

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The family – Yashica YE, Nicca 3-F, Tower Type-3 (top to bottom)

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The Yashica-Nicca YF (the lens is not the standard lens for this body)

Please stroll on over to Paul’s site (be sure to bookmark it) for everything you ever wanted to know about the early days of the Yashica-Nicca collaboration. Paul quickly puts to rest many bits of intentional and unintentional misinformation that’s been floating around the web about this subject.

Paul’s site can be reached here.

Thanks for stopping by! – Chris

Be sure to visit the “gift shop” before you leave today for some great deals on some vintage cameras and equipment – 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.

Copyright © 2015-2019 Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Chris Whelan
All rights reserved.

 

 

Fungus Among Us – “Is that a snow globe in your lens”?

Chris and Carol 2 Comments

A nice Nikkor lens from around 1951. When a lens is stored improperly you get a snow globe.

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I’m calling it fungus but I don’t see the typical filaments associated with fungus. Mold tends to be spotty. Haze is, well hazy. This whiteout is on the surface of the last internal lens element and is not reachable without a teardown of the lens. I’m sending this one off to a professional camera and lens repair service shortly. No promises made but for $90 its worth a try. The lens is in nearly mint condition otherwise.

The seller did offer a refund of $40 on my purchase to help with the repair costs which was appreciated. A lot of problems could be averted by simply shining a bright LED light through a lens before listing it. But this lens is on a rangefinder camera so simply looking through the range/viewfinder wouldn’t have spotted these issues.

Below is a scan of a page from the Sears Camera Catalog from Fall 1952. It goes into an extensive background of the Nikkor lenses that were available for the Tower 35 – aka Nicca Type-3.

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I’ll let you know how it looks when it’s back from service. 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.

Copyright © 2015-2018 Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Chris Whelan
All rights reserved.

Nicca & Tower Instruction Booklets

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Not often seen, here’s a few instruction booklets for the classic Nicca and Nicca-Tower rangefinders. No dates on these but by the look of the cameras on the covers, I’d say the earliest is 1950.

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The Nicca Type III (Type-3) pictured above and below.

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The Nicca 3-S and Type 4 (below).

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The Tower Type III made by Nicca for Sears, Roebuck and Company (below).

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Do you have a Tower or Nicca instruction booklet? How about some early ads? We are interested buyers of anything relating to Nicca and the Tower rangefinder cameras of the 1950s. Let us know. 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.

Copyright © 2015-2018 Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Chris Whelan
All rights reserved.

Happy SUNday! New items in our shop and all made in the U.S.A. (a very long time ago)

Chris and Carol Leave a comment

Happy Sunday everyone! Here are some interesting items we’ve added to our shop over this past week – you can see them in more detail at http://www.ccstudio2380.com

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Argus C3 Match-Matic 35mm film camera from the 1800s – just kidding, 1960s. It has such a distinctive style it’s sure to get some looks when you’re out and about with it. Made in Michigan.

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The flash unit is actually very well designed and has a few neat tricks hidden inside. Affectionally was known as “the Brick”.

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From 1958 the Wollensak Eye-Matic Model 46 (C-46) 8mm movie camera. Featuring a three lens turret with a normal, wide-angle, and telephoto lens. Direct from Chicago to the world.

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Classic Kodak Tourist 620 roll film medium format camera from the late 1940s. Proudly made by the good folks of Rochester, New York. You can still buy 620 film in both black and white and color.

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The Tourist takes eight exposures from 620 film each a big 2 1/4 by 3 1/4 inches (6 x 9 cm).

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Made in Boston in 1936. The Keystone Model K-8. This fully functioning 8mm movie camera is a real classic – it features a Wollensak f3.5 Cine Velostigmat lens with a rare Bell & Howell yellow filter.

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Talk about old school movie making. This camera is 82 years old and runs perfectly.

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Beautiful “Hippie” style woven cloth camera strap from 1971. Far out man!

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From 1972 – a classic from Polaroid. The Model 420 features a 2 element, 114mm f/8.8 lens and Polaroid Focused Flash (a GE flashcube in a louvered box). This Polaroid uses Fujifilm FP-100C film (2 1/4 by 3 1/4 inch) which is still available (although no longer made) so supplies will eventually run out.

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Not made in the U.S.A. but sold by Montgomery Ward in 1955. Made by what was to become the Beauty Camera Company of Tokyo.

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The Ward 35 was the same camera as the popular Beauty 35 sold in Japan. A simple 35mm viewfinder camera with a fast f/2.8 45mm lens.

So there you have it – all new in our online store this week. You can find them at https://www.ccstudio2380.com

It’s a great way to get into film photography or add to your collection of vintage cameras at very affordable prices.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to visit our shop!

Chris

 

Yashica Pentamatic II – The Phantom

Chris and Carol 1 Comment

A new Pentamatic joins the family – this one was made in September of 1960.

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Seldom seen in the wild, Yashica’s “Phantom” camera – the P2

The Pentamatic II was fitted with a limited production lens made by Zunow Optical – a 5.8cm f1.7 Auto Yashinon with 10 aperture blades. It’s a massive camera with a ton (1,028 grams) of brass and glass.

It’s a distinctive design – very modern but classic at the same time. A clean pentaprism without the cold shoe mounted on it – in fact, the cold shoe (accessory shoe) is mounted on the camera’s left shoulder just above the hidden rewind knob.

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The serial number (NO. 96000944) indicates the “when” of this camera. The “9” is for September and the next digits, “60” is for 1960. The last 5 digits are the sequence number or production number. This one is the 944th made since production began in August 1960.

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A rather unique lens for its time – I feel that the lens was made by Zunow Optical for Yashica and was only produced in an extremely limited number for the short run of the Pentamatic II (about 6 months). This is one of Yashica’s hardest cameras to acquire – there may only be less than 500 of these (if that much) left in the wild.

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris

Happy SUNday!

Chris and Carol Leave a comment

A couple of the advertising boys from Yashica

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Could this be the camera that our Sailor Boy is holding? Yashica’s Auto Focus Motor 35 from 1981.

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Since Yashica has never officially named their advertising doll, I’ve always referred to him as ‘Sailor Boy’ for obvious (to me) reasons. Sailor hat and blue sailor pants. The other boy – well that’s still up for discussion. I originally thought of him as being a party boy and then a Christmas elf and now back to party guy and now… Yashica’s take on the nursery rhyme, “Wee Willie Winkie”. Floppy hat with the little ball or tassels on the end, and pointy slippers. It appears that Yashica used him to “announce” the arrival of their new camera. A stretch but thanks to my friend Paul, a good stretch.

The camera that the boy is holding resembles the Yashica Auto Focus Motor which was released in the early 1980s. The brochure shows the camera on a table with party hats, presents and a cake with candles – a birthday cake?

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Party hat? Christmas hat? Sleeping cap? It is missing a green decal on the front of the hat that says Yashica in katakana. The green decal and the white hat with red stars made me think that these were Christmas colors.

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The Sailor Boy (far right) with his proper green decal on his cap. Pointy (elf?) shoes and what appears to be a Christmas ball hanging from the cap… or maybe not.

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A true Christmas Sailor Boy – he’s a candle and so is his tree.

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Could this be Yashica’s inspiration??? Hmmmm

Thanks for stopping by Y’all! Have a great day!

Chris and Carol

The Curious Case of the Yashica ‘Olympic’* Camera

Chris and Carol Leave a comment

*No, not those Olympics.

New to us, this neat little Yashica L AF 35mm compact point and shoot film camera is from 1986 and sports an Olympic theme. In all the years that Carol and I have collected Yashica cameras we’ve never run across a Yashica that featured a logo not directly related to Yashica – until now.

We’re big fans of the L AF and we’ve reviewed it before. Field Test of the L AF

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We haven’t been able to find anything that relates to this logo – no other Yashica-Kyocera camera has one. And what exactly is “Camera America”? It looks like (somewhat) an official Olympic logo but without the 5 rings. Did Yashica-Kyocera invent it purely for a marketing campaign? The timing is off as the previous Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984 and the next wasn’t scheduled until 1988. Releasing an Olympic camera in 1986 just doesn’t make sense.

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The colors and fonts match in our opinion (see below) – the reds and golds match so it most likely was applied by the factory. As was typical with Yashica and Kyocera, no documentation exists for a “Camera America” version of anything nevermind an “Olympic Edition”.

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As we’ve said before the Yashica-Kyocera L AF is a low priced version of the more recognizable T* series of 35mm compacts and is a great camera for the money. If you run across one in working condition, by all means, give it a try.

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This one is a tad beat up and it hasn’t been tested yet but we expect it to do well. Once we squeeze some time out of our busy schedule we’ll have a go at it.

By the way, here’s a clip from the instruction booklet for the L AF – more than likely the date depicted matches the release date of the camera (or pretty close to it).

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A sticky 1986 Yashica-Kyocera case for the L AF

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Our first Yashica-Kyocera L AF

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The image was taken with the L AF on Fujicolor film

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The much more expensive version

Thanks for your visit. Have you ever seen an Olympic Yashica? Please share your comments if you have!

Chris and Carol ^.^

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.

Copyright © 2015-2018 Yashica Pentamatic Fanatic, Chris Whelan
All rights reserved.