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Post by yashica1943 on Apr 25, 2020 11:41:33 GMT -5
As stated elsewhere I bought a Yashica FX-D Quartz together with an Argus/Mamiya Prismat. The Yashica is very good except for the usual dreadful covering material and the light seals. Unfortunately the lens has very slight fungus inside. Out of interest I compared it with my Contax 139 Quartz, which it is related to. If I had to use one or the other I would take the Yashica (with a good lens) it just feels right in the hand. I find it quite similar to my AE-1 which used to be my main (only) film camera 1980 onwards until auto focus came in.
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Post by philbirch on Apr 26, 2020 3:26:30 GMT -5
Yashicas were never very popular in the UK, mostly due to the indifferent marketing my their importer Photopia. In Manchester, where I lived in the 60s, 70s and early 80s there were around 8 camera shops. Only one, Lomax, sold the Yashica / CONTAX. Lenses were difficult to get, they had to be ordered, Normally only one camera was available (to view) on launch date despite all the ads and editorials in the press. They had to be ordered. We, at Lomax, took no orders when the CONTAX RTS was launched, customers went on a fruitless search elsewhere for one. It was pretty shambolic.
Most of the Yashicas we saw were owned by foreigners. Yashica was the favourite brand of the African and Arab nations. It would appear.
I asked five former colleagues of mine from Lomax and Cutlers cameras and the past manager of Fred Ash Cameras, who are out of the business now, to list 35mm SLR cameras in order of perceived quality this was the reply
Leica Nikon Canon Pentax Olympus Minolta Chinon Miranda Praktica Zenith Cosina Carena
No yashica. It didn't even come into the equation.
When I asked the same guys about the Yashica and CONTAX, they placed the CONTAX below Canon and the Yashica above Praktica.
In my personal experience I have owned two screw thread Yashicas. They are well built cameras, similar to the Pentax Spotmatic range in feel and quality. A Pentax user friend of mine bought the two Yashicas from me as he wanted more bodies. Later he said he couldn't trust them, but when pressed couldn't put a finger on it. he bought a k-mount Carena after trading in the two Yashes and regretted it. The Carena was a truly abysmal camera. Over half were returned for a refund. The Yashicaas sat on our 'used shelf' for two years before being sold off ridiculously cheap in the closing down sale in 1981.
Perception of the brand was low. It was nothing to so with the reliability of the product. More the reliability of the importer and the sorry state of the models, which we did see, being used by owners who didn't respect their equipment.
Us British looked after our equipment, probably no more so than the Zenith and Praktica owners who bought fitted metal cases to keep their equipment safe.
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Post by yashica1943 on Apr 28, 2020 4:44:26 GMT -5
I have now recovered the Yashica with a black leather skin and it looks and feels very nice. The above observations are very interesting. As a very skint amateur photographer in the early 80s my observations would have been similar but I looked on Leica and Nikon as being professional 35mm cameras and completely out of reach. My own estimation was that during the 70's Pentax was the desireable brand for an amateur but. I was left a Canon AE-1 and used that for several years, and would have gone on to buy Canon autofocus cameras when they came in because an insurance policy matured and I had budgeted £2000 to buy a new outfit. Due to lazy Canon salespersons I ended up with a Minolta 9000 AF and several lenses and an autowinder. Very good camera. I was aware of Yashica and the related Contax and they usually had good reviews in magazine tests early on. I am now in the position to have had and handled some of the different cameras from the 60', 70's and 80's. Including a couple of Yashica autofocus, weren't they just horrible!?
Having read that through again I now realise far too late that instead of the Minolta 9000 AF and lenses I should have bought a Leica M3 which would have retained all or most of its value. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
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