Cosina

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Cosina Company, Ltd. of Nagano, Japan is a Japanese camera and lens manufactuer.

Description

Cosina Company, Ltd. (株式会社コシナ or Kabushiki-gaisha Koshina) is a Japanese camera and lens manufactuer. The company was founded by Mr. B. Kobayashi in 1959 as a lens factory under the name Nikō (or Nikoh).[1] Though the company has produced cameras and lenses under its own name, it is better known for making equipment for resale under other company's brand names. Cosina has manufactured camera bodies for many well-known camera brands, including Canon, Contax, Nikon, Revue, Olympus, Vivitar, and Yashica. Cosina also manufactures the modern Voigtländer Bessa line of cameras and optics, along with the newly revived Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera and lenses.

Cosina has a long history of manufacturing optical glass and is currently capable of producing glass and plastic aspheric lenses. Their factory maintains a glass furance that is heated to 1300 C, running 24 hours a day. All glass produced by Cosina today is lead-free eco-glass. Their current glass polishing technology is able to achieve sub-micron precision. They also have vacuum-deposition optical coating capabilities that are certified to meet Carl Zeiss lens standards.[1]

In Germany, a lot of Cosina cameras and lenses were marketed by Photo Porst, for many years Germany's biggest photo retailer and mailorder house under their house brand name Porst.

One of Cosina's more interesting camera designs was the E1 Solar, introduced in 1994. The E1, a 35mm film SLR, is powered by rechargeable batteries charged by a small solar panel atop the camera prism housing.

A recent Cosina-branded product was the SW-107, identical to the (silver) Bessa L except for a different top plate, made at the beginning of the Cosina Voigtländer era for areas where Cosina was not authorized to market the Voigtländer trademark. The 107 is hard to find now.

In 2005 Zeiss and Cosina announced a partnership whereby Cosina would manufacture the new Zeiss Ikon RF camera and most of the accompanying M mount lenses.

126 Film

35mm SLR

K mount

M42

35mm compact

35mm, Voigtländer brand

110 film

Cosina Lenses

  • Cosina-W MC 28mm f/2.8, 49mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 100mm, f/3.5, 49mm filer size
  • Cosina-T MC 28-70mm f/2.8-4.3, 67mm filter size
  • Cosina MC 28-300mm, f/4.0-6.3, 77mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 28-70mm, f/4.0, 62mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 35-70mm, f/3.5-4.5, 55mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 35-135mm, f/3.5-4.5, 58mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 35-200mm, f/4.0-5.4, 62mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 70-210mm, f/2.8-3.8, 62mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 70-210mm, f/4.5-5.6, 52mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 75-200mm, f/4.5-5.6, 52mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 75-300mm, f/4.5-5.6, 58mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 80-200mm, f/4.5-5.6, 52mm filter size
  • Cosina MC Macro 100-500mm, f/5.6-8.0

Cosinon Lenses

  • Cosinon-W MC 24mm f2.8
  • Cosinon Auto 28mm f2.8
  • Cosinon Auto 35mm f2.8
  • Cosinon Auto 50mm f1.7
  • Cosinon Auto MC 50mm f1.7
  • Cosinon Auto 50mm f1.8 and f1.9
  • Cosinon Auto 55mm f1.4
  • Cosinon MC 55mm f1.4
  • Cosinon Auto MC 135mm f2.8
  • Cosinon Auto MC 200mm f3.5
  • Cosinon-T MC 200mm f4
  • Cosinon-Z MC 28-50mm f3.5-4.5 zoom
  • Cosinon-Z MC 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom
  • Cosinon-Z MC 80-200mm f4.5 zoom
  • Cosinon MC 55-225mm f3.5-4.5 zoom MACRO 1:2

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Cosina website, company and historical information
  2. also sold re-badged on body and lens as "Kobana" (D Spennemann)

Links