Show and Discuss "Cosina" Made 35mm SLR Cameras

[ic-racer]

Nice collection of rebranded Cosinas.

 

[Marco Gilardetti]

It's just cost. A good example is Minolta. Soon after they started making auto-focus SLRs & lenses in the mid 1980's, they moved all of their manual focus SLR & lens production to Seagull plants in China. (I assume much of their rangefinder camera production moved to China as well). Others did the same thing at the same time, such as Yashica -- and probably Cosina, too. Other companies tried Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea, etc.

When Minolta stopped making manual-focus SLRs, Seagull continued to make them, and sold them under the Seagull, and several other, labels -- from Argus to Zenit -- and they added a lot of nice features that Minolta SLRs never had. How about vertical, metal, mechanical SLR shutters with 1/2,000 shutter speeds? No battery needed!

Thanks. This indeed explains many things.

But in the specific case of the Yashica FX-3 Super, were the first batches actually produced by themselves at Kyocera? Or did the model come into being as a joint venture with Cosina right from the start?

 

[xkaes]

Kyocera is a "marketing conglomerate" -- like Sony, Panasonic, Vivitar, etc. They don't actually make anything. Other companies make the stuff and slap the Kyocera, Sony, Vivitar, etc. label on it.

Kyocera bought Yashica, and stuck the Kyocera label on the stuff instead of "Yashica". And most Yashica lenses were made by Tomioka, and perhaps Cosina.

Sony bought Minolta, and stuck the Sony label on the stuff instead of "Minolta". And some Minolta lenses were made by Tokina, and perhaps Cosina.

I could go on all day. Trying to figure out who made what is a rabbit hole -- but some people enjoy the adventure.

 

[ic-racer]

Monopix has spent some time figuring out these things

Yashica FX3 shutter running too fast

I'm trying to adjust the shutter speeds of this FX-3 but I can't get the shutter to fire at the correct speeds. I managed to get it right using the adjustment spring for low speeds right below the black gear but the shutter doesn't work with speeds of 1/1, 1/2 and 1/4 s because the spring...

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