Yashica Samurai X3. 0 Half - Frame SLR For 35mm Film With Case, All Black, 1980s
Item History & Price
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To understand why this Kyocera Yashica Samurai X3.0 camera is a classic SLR, you do need to know a little about i...ts legacy ....
The mighty Kyocera Corporation was originally a ceramics manufacturer, founded in 1959 as the Kyoto Ceramic Co, changing their name to Kyocera in 1982.
Yashica was a World-renowned Japanese manufacturer of cameras, founded in 1949, and resposible for many of the most significant advances in SLR camera design and manufacture. Noteably in the early 1970s, they partnered with Carl Zeiss of Germany to produce a classic line of luxury cameras under the historic Contax brand.
Kyocera became involved in camera production in 1983, when they took over the hugely successful and historic Yashica Photo Company, who had taken over the classic Contax brand from Zeiss of Germany some years earlier. Initially, the company continued to produce Yashica's revolutionary and ground-breaking camera designs under the original Yashica and Contax brands, including award-winning models such as the Yashica FX-3 and Contax 159MM. Both brands used Yashica's excellent C/Y bayonet lens mount, allowing owners of less expensive Yashica cameras to use all of the Yashica / Contax lenses, including the premium-quality Contax Zeiss T* lenses.
From 1985, autofocus (AF) SLR cameras began appearing from Minolta & Canon with huge success, and other makers began a race to catch up. The Contax licence ended around this time, so Kyocera began to offer camera models with the Kyocera nameplate, absorbing the Yashica brand into its new corporate identity. 1986 saw Kyocera launch a short-lived series of excellent, classic AF 35mm SLR cameras together with a new series of AF lenses to compete with Minolta & Canon.
Unfortunately, the new Kyocera / Yashica AF cameras were introduced too late against their more established competitors, who all offered a larger selection of compatible lenses. Kyocera attempted to encourage the large number of existing owners of Yashica manual-focus SLR cameras to move to their autofocus models, but without much success. Yashica autofocus SLR cameras continued in a progressively cheapened series of models until 2005, when Kyocera announced it would cease production of all Yashica, Kyocera, and Contax cameras.
What looks like a camcorder from the 1980s, takes upwards of 75 shots per roll, and is really an SLR with a built-in 3x zoom lens ? The answer is the Kyocera / Yashica Samurai X3.0. This completely unique classic model is a half-frame 35mm film camera; instead of taking 24x36mm images, it records 17x24mm images, and as these frames are half the size of a standard 35mm frame, you get twice as many frames per roll.
The unusual Samurai series was begun by Kyocera in 1987 with the X3.0. As they had famously done before, Yashica took the bold step of completely discarding prior ideas about still-camera design, and instead created a body resembling a compact video camera of the time. The Samurai is a true SLR, exposing half-fame (17×24 mm) images - a format which had always been more accepted within the Japanese market, most notably the long-running Olympus Pen series. The Samurai X3.0 can be found branded either by Yashica (on early models) or Kyocera (later production models), with controls, buttons & trim in either red (Yashica), teal blue (Kyocera) or plain black (final production run units).
Half-frame format apart, Yashica's Samurai concept is often sighted as one of the originators of the "bridge camera" styling, alongside full-frame models such as Olympus's Infinity series.
The Samurai X3.0 includes an integral, autofocus 25-75mm zoom lens - a 3x zoom range, and besides autofocus, the camera has motorised film advance and rewind, and power zooming using WIDE / TELE push buttons. A small "RS" (reset) button is also provided, in the event the camera's microprocessor locks up.
Film / frame format: 35mm / 18×24mm (half-frame)
Lens: Yashica Zoom Lens 1:3.5-4.3 / 25-75mm using 14 elements (filter thread: 49mm) Shutter: Electronic central shutter with speeds 2 to 1/500 sec. Autofocus lock with half-press on shutter release Integral electronic flash, activates automatically Sequence-shooting and 10 sec. self-timer drive modes Optional date/time imprinting at bottom right of image; three date formats DX code sensing, ISO 50–3200 (default ISO 100 for non-coded cassettes) Eyepiece diopter correction, +1 to -4 Battery: 6v lithium (2CR5)This is a classic Kyocera Yashica Samurai X3.0 Autofocus Half-Frame SLR camera for 35mm film with 25-75mm f3.5-4.3 zoom lens from the late-1980s - an all-black version from the very last productiuon run - in very good condition and full working order, new 2CR5 battery installed, fully tested, complete with original case & strap
