Although started in the last months of the Second World War, Yashima Precision Works first camera was produced in 1953 as a private-label Pigeonflex 6 x 6 TLR design for Endō Kamera-ten – a large Tokyo camera store.
Later in the year, Yashima introduced its first camera under its own name, the Yashimaflex, another 6x6 cm twin lens reflex (TLR). The next year the Yashimaflex was followed by a number of models called Yashicaflex.
In 1959, Yashima built its first 35mm SLR, the Pentamatic. It was an eyelevel reflex with a fairly bright pentaprism finder and proprietary bayonet mount for its Auto-Yashinon lenses. The standard f/1.8 55mm lens used a semi-automatic diaphragm, where the lens stopped down to shooting aperture when the shutter button was pressed, but did not return to fully open (for best viewing/focusing) until the shutter was wound and the film advanced.
Article continues belowThe Pentmatic series was short-lived as the Yashica bayonet limited third-party support and thus they changed later models to the more standard M42 thread mount, a.k.a the Pentax/Praktica mount. The Pentamatic was a well-made camera with a smooth-operating, very quiet shutter.
The TL Super followed in 1966, which introduced TTL stop-down metering with a CdS cell, a new horizontal cloth focal plane shutter (1s to 1/1000s + B), mirror lockup, and self-timer; all in a body that weighed about 703g. It was very close to the Pentax Spotmatic in size and features, other than the fact that the Spotmatic did not have a mirror lockup. This is the model your scribe has had the most experience with, and while not bad, the shutter was not as quiet or smooth as the Pentamatics shutter, and the mirror was a bit noisier. But then, it came in at a lower price point compared to the Pentamatic.
This TTL series begat the simpler TL (1968) with a 1/500 top speed and a slower f/2 lens, while the TL-Electro (1972) replaced the delicate light meter with more robust LEDs. A green center symbol (often shown as "O") would light up fully for correct exposure, while the upper and lower red arrows indicated over- or underexposure, respectively. The display activates only when pressing the meter switch (which was also the depth-of-field preview lever), which stops down the lens for TTL CdS metering.
All of these cameras developed a solid reputation for reliability and good optics at very reasonable prices, though they never “cracked” the professional market.
In 1973, Yashica launched a major collaboration with Carl Zeiss, resulting in the Contax RTS (1974), a professional electronic SLR whose C/Y bayonet mount was shared with new Yashica bodies. Yashica took this opportunity to seriously upgrade their own cameras and lenses, which also used the C/Y‑mount. Thus, Contax RTS users could use Yashica lenses to save some money, or more likely, use the superior Zeiss lenses on a Yashica body, in the same way some would use Nikkor lenses on the Nikkorex F or Nikkormat bodies.
They began with the FX‑1 (1975) and FX‑2 (1976), followed by FR, FR‑I, and FR‑II bodies that paralleled Contax models but at lower cost, while still accepting the same Zeiss T* lenses alongside Yashica ML optics.
In 1979, the FX‑3, built by Cosina to Yashica specifications, offered a compact, all‑mechanical C/Y‑mount body that became an enduring entry‑level workhorse and a worthy alternative to the Pentax K1000. It continued production (with revisions) into the 2000s.
After Kyocera took control of Yashica in 1983, Yashica‑branded SLRs continued alongside Contax, but competition from Minolta’s 1985 autofocus SLR and rivals pushed Yashica to launch its own AF 35mm SLR line. Launched in 1987 with the Yashica 230-AF, the line was relatively expensive, poorly marketed, and never matched the success of earlier manual‑focus models – despite its autofocus system working better than some of its rivals.
It all came crashing down for Yashica, Contax, and for even a few Zeiss and Leica lenses that Kyocera was building under contract, when, in 2005, Kyocera abandoned the camera business to concentrate on camera modules for smartphones.
Kyocera sold the Yashica trademark to Hong Kong's MF Jebsen Group in 2008, leading to attempts to revive the brand with products like the Y35 DigiFilm. In the last year or so, it has produced a wide range of point-and-shoot cameras at different price points to appeal to the renewed popularity of compact models.
Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras.
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