Yashica

Yashica started out in 1945 as Yashima Seiki Seisakusho as a non-camera company. They served mostly as sub-contractors for other companies – and this being war-time Japan – produced fuses for gun shells near the end of WWII.

In early 1953 they produced their first 6×6 TLR, the Pigeonflex on behalf of a separate distributor. By June of 1953 they had changed their name to Yashima Kōgaku Seiki and began production on their own cameras, the first of which was the Yashimaflex. In 1957, the company produced the first Yashica Mat which featured a crank frame advance. In this same year, the company founded Yashica, Inc. – a subsidiary based in New York City – to manage the US marketing efforts.

In 1958, the company officially became Yashica Co. Ltd – officially adopting the name of its cameras. They took over the Nicca Camera Company in 1959 and entered into the 35mm camera market. Incidentally, Nicca was started by former employees of Seiki Kogaku – the predecessor of Canon.

By 1973, Yashica was eager to be more competitive in the 35mm camera market. So they began a partnership with Carl Zeiss to create a new pro-level SLR bearing the Contax name. A new line of luxury lenses was also introduced at this time with a new Contax/Yashica bayonet mount. Their previous SLR lenses were using the M42 screw-mount. Aside from the Contax-branded cameras, they also began production of a new series of SLRs bearing the Yaschia brand. The first of these being the FX-1 of 1975.

In 1983, Yashica was acquired by Kyocera – which continued production of the Contax and Yashica branded cameras. However, they ceased production of all cameras (film and digital) in 2005.