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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 Dec 6, 2016 17:24:53 GMT
Posted: Dec 6, 2016 17:24:53 GMT
Hi everyone,
Well, a lovely Yashica FFT winged its way from the land of the Rising Sun to the UK today; it was the very last M42 camera made by Yashica. Their next cameras were the FX-1 and FR and those were presented to the trade while the AX and FFT were still in production.
I've taken a piccie of the 3 last M42 cameras in the Yashica stable; oddly, the TL Electro was a 1972 introduction, following the advent of the TL Electro X in 1968 and the TL Electro X ITS in 1970; you might have expected the X and X ITS to have been derivatives of the TL Electro but no...!
I am very curious as to why Yashica bothered to make the FFT (no idea as to what FFT stands for) with only 18 months to go before the C/Y mount cameras were due to take over. It is a pared back version of the TL Electro in essence; given that they were still selling the TL Electro in 1973/4 as well as the AX, why bother with the FFT? I can only assume it was to eat up spare parts and to have a fall back in case of delays in the Contax-Yashica project. There's nothing wrong with the camera but they had several earlier models with an identical picture-taking spec. I have yet to look inside - I suppose it may have been a bit like the AX in acting as a test-bed for new circuitry; interestingly, the TL Electro and FFT have a horizontal cloth shutter (as in the FX-1 and FR) whereas the AX and TL Electro X ITS had vertical metal shutters as seen in the later FX-3, FX-D and subsequent models. Anyhow, it's good to have arrived at closure on Yashica M42 SLRs.... |
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Group: Member
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Join date: November 2014
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on Apr 18, 2018 21:53:20 GMT
Posted: Apr 18, 2018 21:53:20 GMT
The FFT looks like a hodgepodge combo of previous models all lumped together. It appears to have the shutter and meter setting dials and arrangement of the TL/TL-Super, the shutter winding lever of the TL-E/Electro-X, but the cloth shutter of the TL-Electro; I wonder of the meter presentation reflects that of the TL-Electro also?
And given that the TL-Electro began after the Electro-X (and don’t forget about the TL-E, the simpler cloth shutter version of the Electro-X) they were actually being sold new beyond the mid 70s; I bought my TL-Electro new in 1976.
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Group: Member
Post: 33 (9 liked)
Join date: November 2014
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on Apr 19, 2018 0:37:02 GMT
Posted: Apr 19, 2018 0:37:02 GMT
Out of curiosity, I looked up the FFT manual; it has a needle display pretty much exactly as the TL/TL-Super. Why Yashica went back to this as opposed to the lighted display is puzzling to me. Also, it still takes the 1.3V mercury battery... again puzzling given the ubiquitousness of the 1.5V LR44 first used in the TL/TL-Super. Basically, it seems the FFT is a quasi-TL with an expanded shutter speed range, mercury battery power, and the bent film advance lever from the TL-E/TL-Electro-X (and no mirror lock-up).
Like you say, it was probably just a way to use up the parts inventory before switching production.
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