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on May 15, 2020 18:02:04 GMT
Posted: May 15, 2020 18:02:04 GMT
Zeiss no doubt made a dreadful blunder in mistaking the sign of the times and dismissing AF as yet another short-lived fad. I'm sure this was one of the (several) nails in Yashica-Kyocera's coffin, Randy.
BTW, I never quite understood how Minolta came up with an AF mount almost identical to that of the Yashica, much too similar to be attributed to sheer coincidence...
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on May 15, 2020 21:56:25 GMT
Posted: May 15, 2020 21:56:25 GMT
I think there was an article written years ago that may have insinuated that Minolta could have been a beneficiary of Yashica's demise in not only the mount design, but the underlying focusing scheme. I can't remember if the idea was some type of licensing on the AF system, and an outright 'borrowing' of the mount to mimic the focal registration depth Yashica used in their design -or- if I'm mixing that notion up with Minolta and Sony with the A100 introduction as a revamped Maxxum AF.
I suppose it might have even been a little bit of them both, actually. Kyocera certainly wasn't against making a buck on Yashica engineering's inovations, and I can see them 'pimping out' designs for some extra cash. Look at all the FX-3 clones, and you get the idea.
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on May 16, 2020 0:00:55 GMT
Posted: May 16, 2020 0:00:55 GMT
Zeiss no doubt made a dreadful blunder in mistaking the sign of the times and dismissing AF as yet another short-lived fad. I'm sure this was one of the (several) nails in Yashica-Kyocera's coffin, Randy.
BTW, I never quite understood how Minolta came up with an AF mount almost identical to that of the Yashica, much too similar to be attributed to sheer coincidence...
I'm not entirely sure we can lay so much blame on Zeiss doorstep concerning AF lenses. While it is true that they initially dismissed AF as a fad for amateur photographers, they changed their tune quite quickly and as far back as 1982 had produced AF versions of their 35 2.8 T* Distagon, 50 1.4 T* Planar and 135 2.8 T* Sonnar for use with the Contax 137AF which I was lucky enough to catch at Photokina (along with the Yashica FX-A). Kyocera was already sniffing around Yashica in 1982 and both the Contax AF and Yashica Honeywell AF projects were among the first things they scrapped (Zeiss' development costs were quite substantial). Yashica's management was probably in no position to authorise the huge expenditure for a Contax/Yashica AF system while negotiating Kyocera's 1983 takeover of the company.
Zeiss proved they could produce a reliable AF system with the introduction of the Contax 645 and the N-series. Yashica needed to embrace AF and as we see, the 230AF and subsequent lower-spec models, were introduced with a limited but impressive set of lenses. But as was said, it was too little, too late and quite pricey. Although the photographic press was generally positive about the quality of the 230AF and the glassware, Kyocera cold never match the economies of scale of the big players and the common criticism was price.
It would have been interesting to see how things may have changed if Contax and Yashica had shared the same 35mm AF mount, harking back to the days of the RTS and FR joint systems.
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on May 17, 2020 7:27:41 GMT
Posted: May 17, 2020 7:27:41 GMT
As far, as this Story goes, besides the two prototype Lenses, with Screwdrive AF, Zeiss feared a lesser build quality, "plastic" Lenses, and didn't wanted the Contax 137-based Body developed being further, hence with AF.
The famous Contax 645 does feature AF of course, but that is 1998 (!) tech, not 1982 or -85. Yashica/Kyocera wanted a piece of the AF Gear Cake, and they've tried it into Spring 1987 with the Yashica 200/230AF...unfortunately, it wasn't being successful, and i must admit, when i've seen these Lenses and 2 Bodies back then, i asap thought "fugly" into that aesthetics term. Also the strange 45° Mounting of the Lenses (from the Distance Scale) is being made, because of the even more ugly, "Zyklop" like, detachale Flash Module, which fitted into the Hotshoe from this AF Yashica Duo.
The 200/230 AF suffered from bad designed ergonomics (no Dial, just button push) for Drive Mode, Aperture, etc. cheap Plastics, very bad Design & overall a Lowcost build Quality. Whileas the Lenses are mostly into optically terms fine, the unorthodox Design (ugly, too) was a Negative, further. I can't imagine, what Kyocera/Yashica was being thinking, back then...different than "Oh, look at our Competition, Minolta, Nikon. They've already got AF Systems out! We need to hurry and release our own!" Something like that, the Managers might thought back into 1985...
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