கதை கேளு, கதை கேளு - Yashica Camera கதை கேளு !!

 

The subject matter of this post is an item of 1968 – intend writing more about its gentle-mannered owner – gentleman of Triplicane @ 86 whom I met and heard intensely for an hour or so [more on that later !!] 

கதை கேளு, கதை கேளு - யாஷிகா கேமெரா கதை கேளு !! 

Dedicated to all our friends who imagine themselves to be a Photographer, whipping out fancy mobiles or hold DSLRs with varied lenses, trying to take photos !  life was far different for photographers half-a-century or so ago !! 

Those days only elite few owned Cameras; there were Photo studios in cities.  It was manual focusing, which demanded precision from the operator to ensure subjects were sharp, particularly when using wide apertures.  Unlike modern cameras that automatically adjust to light, photographers had to manually set the aperture and shutter speed.  One had to commit to one ISO (film speed) for the entire roll of film (12-36 shots), limiting flexibility when moving between, for example, bright daylight and dark interiors. Many 1960s cameras had maximum shutter speeds of only 1/500 sec, which is much lower than modern cameras, making fast action shots harder to capture. 

The one here was manufactured by a Company that was founded in Nagano, Japan.  Its eight employees originally manufactured components for electric clocks. Later, they began making camera components, and by June 1953 had introduced their first complete camera  -  Yashica, was founded in 1949 in Nagano, Japan, by brothers Yoshimasa Ushiyama and Jisaburo Ushiyama.  

 

The one pictured here is  “Yashica-Mat” -  a classic Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) medium format camera that was Yashica's first "crank-advance" model. Introduced in 1957, it was designed to compete with the high-end German Rolleiflex at a more accessible price point.  It featured an 80mm f/3.5 Yashinon (the lower lens).   The top lens (viewing one) was 80mm f/3.2 (or f/3.5 depending on the exact year). It had slightly wider aperture making  the viewfinder image brighter, helping  focus in dim light.  There was a Bayonet mount allowing attachment of filters, lens hoods.  The shutter was a Copal-MXV leaf shutter. Since it was a fully mechanical camera, there was no battery requirement.  

.. .. ..  and the original  Japanese Yashica (founded in 1949)  ceased to exist in 2005 after its parent company, Kyocera, pulled out of the camera market.  It was painful and was not overnight – a slow collapse that spread across   distinct stages. It’s a classic story of a company that was brilliant at mechanics but got cornered by the digital revolution. In the early 1980s, the camera world shifted from manual focus to autofocus (AF).   Yashica struggled to keep up. By 1975, Yashica was already struggling financially due to aggressive expansion and high overhead.  In 1983, the Japanese ceramics giant Kyocera stepped in and bought Yashica to save it from total bankruptcy. For a while, that worked but when photography moved from film to digital – the company  Kyocera made the corporate decision to abandon the camera market entirely. 

Interesting ! – sure would follow with posts on the owner of this 1968 model, a Triplicane vasi.

 
Regards – S Sampathkumar
21.3.2026