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Status: Long, long time Contax and Yashica user; glad to be here and hope to contribute.
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on Feb 9, 2023 17:50:13 GMT
Posted: Feb 9, 2023 17:50:13 GMT
Here is a lens that escaped my radar until yesterday when it appeared on a Japanese auction site and eBay too: the Tomioka Auto Tominon 35mm f1.9 in a M42 mount.  Auto Tominon 35mm f1.9At the price being asked (you can buy the Zeiss 55mm f1.2 Anniversary Planar T* for that price) I have a suspicion at might not sell... It's certainly rare but looks very similar to the second version of the Vivitar 35mm f1.9 (usually attributed to Komine); it would be interesting to see a comparison of IQ from both lenses. If this is a Tomioka-manufactured lens, then it's of interest here. If it did indeed come from within the Yashica factory, it begs the question as to why it never carried a Yashica brand. A 35mm f1.9 DS-M would have been quite something; I suspect that production costs for such a specification might have placed it beyond the reach of Yashica's audience. But then, if Tomioka simply went for a re-branded Komine lens, at least they set the aperture ring to work the right way round for Yashica users... Does anyone here know the truth of this lens: a genuine Tomioka or a re-brand? |
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on Feb 9, 2023 22:34:45 GMT
Posted: Feb 9, 2023 22:34:45 GMT
That's pretty amazing. My first thought is perhaps there are more out there -- but why are they rare? Prototype?
I have a hard time imagining "someone" labeling a Cosina, or any other lens, as "Tomioka". That would be like labeling a Minolta-made camera as a Yashica.
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on Feb 11, 2023 6:47:36 GMT
Posted: Feb 11, 2023 6:47:36 GMT
Yashica was - and I think to a certain extent, they were mirrored by Tomioka before the merger - a very secretive company about not only the technology they developed, but the executive decisions they made over the entire course of their run... with a few exceptions that were intended to gain some competitive advantage.
Canon at the very least has their online museum with a smattering of explanatory text sprinkled in, while Leitz/Leica freely provided manufacturing data and production notes to most who asked. Zeiss provided detailed data sheets, complete with their testing graphs - even during the Yashica years - and still do the same now for lenses they design today. It seems that a decision was reached early on at Yashica to keep lots of details quiet, and that apparently continued under Kyocera's management till the end.
To say this lens is a mystery just allows it to fit into that same old secretive mold, and I too can't help but think that there are more than a few of these that somehow trickle out into the daylight and leave many of us scratching our head. The modern equivalent - at the budget end of the spectrum - is the 50mm f/2.0 Yashica DX made after the introduction of the ML line. It too is obscure and there's no 'official' recognition that it ever existed, yet they do turn up regularly enough to get noticed. With any luck, these speedy M42 Tominons will slip out in numbers, and (hopefully) in enough quantity to become affordable to us mere mortals.
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on Feb 12, 2023 10:35:47 GMT
Posted: Feb 12, 2023 10:35:47 GMT
If anyone does manage to buy one at under $6380.00 and needs to do some internal work, here's a page (in Chinese, but translatable) with details... www.bigeye.url.tw/big5/d_tom35.htm |
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on Mar 3, 2023 22:34:32 GMT
Posted: Mar 3, 2023 22:34:32 GMT
It looks like a sibling in the M42 Tomioka Auto Tominon family has surfaced, and it too is for sale with a mind-numbingly high price attached. This one is the 21mm f/3.5, listed at $3599.99 USD... www.ebay.com/itm/394489103007 |
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on Mar 4, 2023 11:05:37 GMT
Posted: Mar 4, 2023 11:05:37 GMT
It looks like a sibling in the M42 Tomioka Auto Tominon family has surfaced, and it too is for sale with a mind-numbingly high price attached. This one is the 21mm f/3.5, listed at $3599.99 USD... www.ebay.com/itm/394489103007From the styling of both lenses, they appear to have been produced after Tomioka had been acquired by Yashica. They certainly look like siblings with the satin finish to the bare metal aperture ring plus its direction of travel; as well as the font and rubber grips. It was interesting to note that the Tomioka Auto Chinon version of this lens had no takers at $1000 in 2014; that said, there's one for sale right now for 1099 Euros. There was also an Auto Rikenon 21mm f3.8, disassembly of which has shown it to have been produced by Tomioka but earlier and to an older design. Examples of the picture quality of the Auto Tominon and Auto Chinon models show it be a very decent performer and there's no question about the rarity of both versions but $450 would seem to be a more sensible asking price. Only a collector with more money than sense would pay anything approaching the current asking prices for the Auto Tominon 21mm or the 35mm f1.4 lenses. With such superb lenses being manufactured on Yashica's premises, it still begs the question as to why they never appeared under the Yashica name, perhaps in the guise of DS-M Auto Yashinon glass. I can only assume the production costs would have required too high a price for what Yashica considered its target audience. But what a line-up it could have been: 21mm f3.5, 24mm f2.8, 28mm f2.8, 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.7, 50mm f1.4, 55mm f1.2, 135mm f2.8, 200mm f4 - an embarrassment of riches in the wide-angle to standard lenses range. |
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