There are particular model names which are indelibly linked to traditional images. Names like Agfa, Minolta, Rollei, and Yashica recall to mind the so-called golden age of analog imagery, having propelled the medium from a fringe space of experimentation to a mainstream, commercially viable business.
Their merchandise had been amongst the very best movie cameras for newbies all the way in which to professionals. Nonetheless, occasions change and never each model, whether or not they had been iconic or not, made the transition into the digital age with equal success.
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This occurred to me not too long ago, whereas I used to be standing in a queue at a funds excessive road ironmongery shop and I observed a pile of AA batteries with Agfa titles on them. Wait, Agfa nonetheless exists? Apparently so, however not essentially as you may keep in mind it from the ‘good previous days’.
You see, names dwell on, however the firms that personal the rights to them change behind the scenes, with out most of the people ever realising what has occurred. Generally, that is by comprehensible business consolidation – manufacturers like Manfrotto, Gitzo, Lowepro, and Sachtler, who make a number of the greatest tripods and the very best digicam baggage, are all presently owned and operated by Videndum plc, for instance – however in different circumstances, the trade is much much less predictable.
AgfaPhoto
The preliminary Agfa firm can hint its historical past all the way in which again to the mid-Nineteenth Century, the place it began life as a dye manufacturing enterprise. Over the following 150 years, it grew into probably the most profitable and well-respected movie producers, producing a few of my favourite emulsions just like the monochrome Agfa APX 100 and 400 and the legendary Extremely 100, identified for its wealthy colours and used to nice impact by equally legendary photographers like Martin Parr.
The digital age was not sort to Agfa, sadly, and the flip of the century noticed the struggling imaging division bought off. It limped on for an additional yr as an impartial entity generally known as AgfaPhoto GmbH, however eventual chapter was inevitable. Whereas Agfa nonetheless exists and prospers in different industries starting from healthcare to “Inexperienced Hydrogen Options” (sure, your guess is nearly as good as mine as to what which means), the imaging division is slightly more durable to hint.
AgfaPhoto Holding GmbH is all that is still of the father or mother firm, however it licenses the identify to varied different companies that make imaging-centric merchandise. Lupus Imaging & Media makes use of the identify on an assortment of disposable cameras and reminiscence playing cards, whereas Germany-based Plawa has an unique association to make use of the AgfaPhoto identify on digital cameras.
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(Picture credit score: AgfaPhoto)
It presently produces the OPTIMA collection of compact cameras, that are primary however appropriate for informal on a regular basis photographers. A look on the specs exhibits that they nonetheless use CCD sensors quite than the CMOS items extra generally present in fashionable digital cameras, maybe exhibiting a reliance on the classic blueprints used on the time of AgfaPhoto’s insolvency.
Including to the complexity of the preparations, many of those merchandise are manufactured by a 3rd (or is it fourth?) celebration in Europe or China, notably Ferrania of Italy, which itself has an advanced historical past of movie manufacturing. As for these batteries I encountered bearing the AgfaPhoto identify, these are made beneath license by GBT-Batteries, headquartered in Germany however made in China.
In brief, when you see a digicam, accent, or certainly something with AgfaPhoto written on it, it definitely hasn’t been produced by the Agfa all of us used to know and love. As for Inexperienced Hydrogen, the Agfa company website confidently tells me that I “want a ZIRFON™ membrane inside your electrolyzer”.
Don’t all of us….
Yashica
That is one other model that you’d have been glad to see on the cabinets of many a digicam store within the latter half of the twentieth century. It was born in Japan in 1949 as Yashima, changing into Yashica after it expanded and bought the Nicca Digital camera Firm, which allowed it to enter the 35mm rangefinder market.
It holds the celebrated report for introducing the first-ever commercially viable electronically-controlled 35mm digicam, the Yashica Electro 35, so it was an undisputed main participant within the already brutally aggressive digicam market.
In a well-recognized flip of occasions, as this competitors heated up over the a long time, Yashica, by now owned by a ceramics firm referred to as Kyocera, was struggling to earn money. Beneath Kyocera’s management – which additionally owned one other iconic identify, Contax – Yashica had moved away from being a top-level skilled digicam producer to a extra budget-friendly consumer-level model.
Lastly, in 2005, manufacturing of all Yashica-branded merchandise ceased and it entered a dormant state for 3 years.
(Picture credit score: Yashica)
Then, in 2008, Kyocera bought the rights to make use of the Yashica identify to MF Jebsen Group, a conglomerate based mostly in Hong Kong. Beneath their administration, the Yashica Y35 was launched in 2017, a retro-styled digicam designed to resemble the aforementioned Electro 35, and extra not too long ago, the Yashica FX-D 100 Digital Movie Simulation Digital camera, adopted by an inexpensive camcorder, the world’s smallest mirrorless digicam, and even evening imaginative and prescient binoculars.
A few of these merchandise are clearly a world other than the unique Yashica, however the FX-D 100 has the look of a conventional Yashica SLR, with Yashica written on the chassis. Nonetheless, the core firm is fully totally different from the one which launched the model all these years in the past.
Finest Yashica digicam offers
Minolta
The know-how of this as soon as nice impartial digicam model discovered new life when Konica Minolta had been purchased by Sony in 2006. For the reason that property Sony acquired included the lens mount and related tech, this grew to become the inspiration for the Alpha digicam household, which has gone ahead to say a major share of the mirrorless market (albeit now with the E mount).
However look across the lesser-seen recesses of the web, and in some client retailers, and also you may nonetheless discover a digicam or two bearing the Minolta identify. If Minolta as an impartial entity ceased to exist, and Sony now owns the rights to make use of it, how can this be? Sony is pragmatic, however it’s not the kind of company to readily license it is mental property with out a extremely worthwhile trigger.
(Picture credit score: Minolta)
The reality is, it didn’t. Nor did it use the Minolta identify on any merchandise which, because it seems, was the issue. Beneath numerous nations’ legal guidelines, companies can solely retain possession of a model identify if they’re actively utilizing it on energetic merchandise. Since Minolta lay dormant, it was snapped up by JMM Lee Properties, LLC – a California-based firm that makes a speciality of buying model names with expired licenses.
JMM then licensed the identify to New York-based Elite Manufacturers Inc., who makes use of it by itself primary digital cameras and different merchandise reminiscent of sprint cams. When you see a Minolta digicam, it has nothing to do with Konica Minolta or Sony. Or Minolta for that matter.
Rollei
As soon as once more, this can be a case of the father or mother firm collapsing, leaving an orphaned, but priceless, identify. Rolleiflex went bust within the early 2000s and, as so typically occurs in these circumstances, the corporate’s property had been divided up.
This appears to be much less of a tragic instance as a number of the others talked about right here, as a result of at the very least Rollei as an entity has form of lived on as an offshoot of that unique firm, though beneath new possession. The corporate is now referred to as Rollei GmbH & Co. KG and it nonetheless markets Rollei-branded photograph merchandise.
That’s to not say new ‘Rollei’ cameras are nonetheless made by Rollei to Rollei specs, and the path goes chilly when digging to seek out out precisely who presently holds the licenses to fabricate Rollei lenses, for instance. Evidently 7Artisans presently makes the Rollei AF mirrorless optics, together with the 85mm f/1.8 for Nikon Z and Sony E mounts.
(Picture credit score: Rollei)
(Picture credit score: Rollei)
In the meantime, the Rollei 35AF Digital camera Lens for the Rollei 35AF movie digicam is made by Mint Digital camera, and the Rolleiflex Hy6 mod2 medium format movie digicam system is produced by DW Picture, beneath license. The latter is definitely fairly uplifting since these cameras are made in very small batches, typically to order, within the former Rollei manufacturing unit in Braunschweig, Germany.
There’s one thing about this setup which feels healthful, and I can think about a bunch of analog fanatics lovingly persevering with the work of Rollei workers of a long time lengthy since handed.
It won’t be like that in any respect, however it’s a much more optimistic final result than a number of the different examples on this checklist.
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