Yashica Yashinon 5cm f2.8 ltm

Hello toanvo ,

Thank you very much for bringing this lens to our attention; it's a gap in our knowledge and I'll add it to our main listing.

Your copy looks to be in excellent condition.  It may be very difficult to find its optical configuration but can you kindly tell us how many aperture blades it has?

Hello biggles3, lumiworx

Thank you for replying to my post!

This lens's 6 blades, filter size: 40.5mm, leica l39 screw mount.

You might have to dig through some web pages to see if someone has either a brochure or catalog or an ad page to know for certain, but I think that alexx could be correct that it was sold alongside the Yashica YE and might very well be the default kit lens. It looks like the page posted by pauls could support that idea, and he's far more knowledgeable than I am on those types of small details.

I've yet to get a YE model to look at the similarities of previous Nicca models that might match, but at first glance the only major differences between it and the Nicca 33 might be the shutter speed dial and some other trim detail. The 33 was, as far as I'm aware, a minor update to the 3-F to add an advance lever instead of the knob wind. Depending on where development efforts were coming from when the YE was introduced, I suppose it's possible that the 5cm f/2.8 could have been a rebadged Nicca lens, that had been given some cosmetic upgrades. The Nicca 3-F I have came with the pictured Nicca 50mm f/2.8 from the Japanese seller I got it from, and I have a suspicion that they were an original kit pairing. If Yashica decided to get them to market in rapid fashion after acquiring Nicca, they might well have reused the existing lens as a starting point. If that's the case, then the 5cm may not have been designed by Yashica and/or Tomioka, but internally it was a Nicca through and through, and was refreshed to match the new look and branding. That's speculation on my part, but I'd think it's at least plausible.

With a few regular searches turning up the usual results - but with a couple of exceptions (noted below) - I figured I'd take a different approach to see what was in the marketplace as of today. This isn't going to provide anything more than anecdotal information, but it might provide some interesting details just based on quantities of a given set of search terms and whatever pairings show up in results. Basically these are run on Yahoo's auctions in Japan and anyone can do these on their own... and you can certainly do them using english brand and model names without resorting to doing some type of translation first.

Looking for "Yashinon 5cm 2.8" won't show any lone lenses, and all of the results presented are fixed-lens rangefinder cameras, like the Minister series and earlier YK/YL types.

Switching search terms to "Yahikor 5cm 2.8" pulls up mostly L39/LTM lenses and a few YE/YF body and lens kits. This might push the notion that the default kit lens for either or both the YE and YF may have been the 5cm Yashikor, and not the Yashinon, but that's far from a fair conclusion.

Changing terms to "Yashica 5cm 2.8" seemingly combines the 2 results above and adds a few more of the same to fit the broader terms, but they're still similar in content to everything in the first 2 searches. If there have been or will be any Yashinon 5cm f/2.8 lenses listed, is anybody's guess.

Doing a Google Image Search for any of those 3 sets of search terms - and this time you actually use the quotation marks for closer matches - there are a few results that don't match the expected ones.

The exception is:

An M42 rarity for "Yashinon 5cm 2.8" pops up on WorthPoint and on the MFlenses forum, and appears to be a preset in the same fashion as the Yashinon-R types. There's one more Flickr set of lens and test shots on that same M42 lens.

As Paul noted on his YE/YF page, there were 2 variations of the Yashikor 5cm f/2.8 lenses, but there's nothing I found so far to suggest the L39/LTM Yashinon in the same size and speed had multiple versions. One of his brochure PDF's on the YE does seem to show the Yashinon 5cm 2.8 as 'a' kit lens, but I don't read Japanese to know if that's confirmed by that brochure's text.

That's very true and sadly it will likely get harder to find a single rabbit hole at all, as time goes by. Canon and Nikon both have their 'Museum' web pages to refer to, so at least both companies saw value in maintaining some general information tied to calendar dates. Leica and Zeiss made it easier for users and collectors by providing lots of lab and testing documentation and giving access to a a very detailed serial number database in the case of Leica/Leitz products - even those outside the photographic line. I suppose there may be other makers who may have offered similar details at some point in their history, but my interest hasn't been broad enough with other companies to know where all of those knowledge stores might be.

It's unfortunate that Yashica disappeared as a major photo manufacturer when Kyocera absorbed them in the 80's and diluted their brand as time went by. I can understand why some companies don't want to share their research data and manufacturing 'secrets' until some time passes, but it's almost like they went out of their way to continually obscure the behind the scenes stuff... or at least they decided not to be as vocal about their internal workings for whatever reason. As it stands now, the web seems to be the only source left for a few shards of any real information, but it would be great if someone were to stumble onto a long-lost cache of company memorandum and production data and publish it online. [ That's a strong hint for any ex-executives from Yashica to send me a message, if they're reading this! ]

I've been headed in that direction for quite some time, but haven't spent a lot of time on it recently... vnew.vintage-yashica.com The basics are there already, and I still have a ton of gear photos yet to do, but I'd be happy to have some help on what still needs doing.

I'll send a PM.