Group: Moderator
Post: 2,040 (563 liked)
Join date: April 2014
Status: Long, long time Contax and Yashica user; glad to be here and hope to contribute.
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on Aug 12, 2023 14:12:20 GMT
Posted: Aug 12, 2023 14:12:20 GMT
OK - I decided to cheat after looking at the amount of stuff in storage - it might take weeks to put hands on the lens... Auto Yash_left_ Auto Yash DX_rightHere we can see the two side-by-side as I've pulled an image from the web of the -DX and tried to match the view with my latest acquisition. The Auto Yashinon 3.5cm lens with the S-Prefix is on the left of the image. As you can see, as lumiworx queried, the DOF cut-out is wider on the Auto Yashinon-DX and its aperture ring is scalloped, which is not the case with the earlier lens. Everything else about both of them appears identical.
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Group: Administrator
Post: 1,371 (302 liked)
Join date: February 2017
Status: Failed treatment for L.B.A. and G.A.S,
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on Aug 13, 2023 1:58:31 GMT
Last Edit: Aug 13, 2023 1:59:49 GMT by lumiworx
Thank you Graham! I wouldn't cal it cheating - just 'resourceful'.
It leads me in the direction that the transitions were done with purpose, and may also hint that there may have been a rationale behind it. For instance... if a wider cutout was required to accommodate different helical 'gearing' (for lack of a better term) and the DoF scale needed more space between it's value markings to be more accurate and/or legible. If the same types of component modifications happened across the whole line of focal lengths, it might point to a major shift in the optical layout and groupings as they were moving from preset versions to a finalized 'Auto' version.
I'm not one to take a perfectly working vintage optic and tear it apart because I'm curious, so I may try to locate some junkers that I can open up to investigate the theory that there was indeed some design changes that need some visual verification and measurement.
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Join date: August 2016
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on Aug 14, 2023 0:27:20 GMT
Last Edit: Aug 14, 2023 0:31:11 GMT by xkaes
These minor changes remind me a lot of the Yashica 800mm f8 CAT. I know there were different versions before the ML model, but these appear to be largely cosmetic changes -- not to the lens design. And even with the Spiratone stripped-down model, there were a few versions. One has the distance scale on the outside of the lens, while another has it inside, in a window. These were all Tomioka changes, and there sure were a lot of them if you add them all up. I've always wondered why they spent so much time making so many minor variations. Did they just want to be able to say "It's NEW , and IMPROVED!"? Can it be that they just needed to waste time and money? I don't think so -- and other lens makers have made very minor, purely cosmetic changes to lenses over time without ever mentioning it in the literature -- like a change to the filter ring (although some would say that's not "cosmetic". They made the changes and never said "It's NEW , and IMPROVED!"?
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Group: Administrator
Post: 1,371 (302 liked)
Join date: February 2017
Status: Failed treatment for L.B.A. and G.A.S,
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on Aug 15, 2023 18:33:05 GMT
Posted: Aug 15, 2023 18:33:05 GMT
I think it might be a case of 'all of the above' and a little bit more, xkaes. I know a few engineers in different disciplines, and they always seem to have a constant thought process going on about how to do something better. Whether it's something they originally designed or not, doesn't really seem to matter. Then there's the marketing guys who want newer/faster/different to keep sales going, the product or packaging designer who has a brain flash and wants to 'do it better', and the bean counter that wants to justify his salary by insisting it can be made cheaper after crunching the latest numbers... then the board/shareholders/investors that want more and more returns that temper the decisions of everyone in the first order of the process. If the incremental changes aren't sufficient to dictate something should become a 'new' product that can justify expensing new packaging or ads or press coverage, then maybe the 'S' type models are the result. Obvious differences for affected employee reference, but not so glaring for consumers.
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