Yashica's Custom-Housed Underwater cameras

Thank you for your comment; I was unaware of the depth to which the Nikonos V could be used.

Sadly, I've not been able to find any sales or marketing literature relating to these two Yashica models; the Nikonos was hardly a cheap photographic option and underwater photography is something of a niche market.  Looking at the construction of the housings and the control buttons, these have been made to a very high standard which implies that they must have been expensive to manufacture.  Bespoke housings for the Contax 137MA and a Contax TLA30 are shown in the Accessories section; they're obviously from a couple of decades earlier and are much more substantial, as are the cameras, and marked 75M. 

Such was the progress in manufacturing ETPs (engineering thermo-plastics) over the intervening years (I once had the pleasure of working with GE Plastics in Bergen-op-Zoom) that the thickness and finish of these two casings is much more refined, even allowing for the reduced weight of the cameras.  While the Contax kit would certainly weigh you down (2.4Kg plus 1kg for the flash), these two are incredibly light (564g with batteries).  It looks like Lexan is used for the lens cover.

I have just discovered that Yashica produced at least one other 'underwater' model - the EZ UW5 - with a Singapore seller offering the last 41 of them for sale at a trade price of $68 each.  However, this is more of a waterproof camera as it's only guaranteed to a depth of 3m.

Hi lumiworx

Thank you for doing the leg-work on the EZ UW5 cameras; until I was checking for further underwater models, I had not even heard of the camera.  

It seems certain that at least the black model has a big issue with its body covering which seems to become tacky over time.  I can appreciate the desire to have a slightly textured finish for something designed to be handled safely around water but there seems to have been a BIG problem with such a 'powdered' black finish.  I had a portable hard-drive that had the identical problem.  Very messy.

I can understand why the company in Singapore is selling them so cheaply...  It's a shame as it had a decent spec for its time.

Oh yes, an apology to bobblehat - with these underwater cameras, it seems we may have found a few models that need adding to your superb wall-chart.

Ah! The chart! ..... I have been dithering for quite a while now as to whether I should remove the JNC Datum Tech cameras from the Yashica Family Tree Chart and just leave the JNC marker box there (as it is at the moment) to show a link to "Other cameras named Yashica". The reticence is caused by the work needed to determine where to draw the line in that "grey area" in 2007 where some Kyocera/Yashica later models were sold in JNC boxes (e.g. the EZ Zoom 105).

If you have a recent version of the chart, you will probably notice that there are some place holders for JNC cameras where I have found out the model names but have yet to put the proper photo in above the names .... this is the point at which I started to have doubts about including the JNC models on the Yashica Family Tree chart, as I realised that the chart could go on forever with JNC producing new model after new model etc, in quick succession. Kyocera/Yashica stopping camera production in 2007 just seems to be a good place to draw a line on the chart!

Of course, that leads to the next problem ...... should a new Family Tree Chart be started for JNC? I think I would have to leave that to someone else to do!