Cosina

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Cosina Co., Ltd. (株式会社コシナ, Kabushiki-gaisha Koshina^?) is a designer and manufacturer of cameras and lenses, and a glassmaker, based in Nakano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

Cosina is the successor to Nikō (or "Nikoh"), a company set up as a manufacturer of lenses in 1959. In 1966, it started to manufacture 35 mm compact cameras and 8 mm cine cameras, in 1968 it started a glassworks, and a year later started the manufacture of 35 mm film SLR cameras. Nikō changed its name to Cosina in 1973. (The first part of the name is a reference to the Koshi area within Nakano, where the founder came from; while the 'Na' represents Nakano.)

Although the name Cosina has previously appeared on compact and SLR cameras for 135 film, it is best known as a manufacturer of cameras and camera components for other brands. During the late 1970s, Cosina made a name for itself in 35 mm rangefinder cameras with a well-built, high quality fixed-lens camera using an aluminum body and a simple shutter-priority autoexposure system. This rangefinder camera was adopted as the basic chassis for several excellent camera models, including the Konica Auto S3, Minolta 7sII, Revue 400se, Prinz 35ER, and Vivitar 35ES.

Cosina is also well known for manufacturing 35 mm SLR cameras to the specifications of other manufacturers and distributors, such as the Yashica FX-3 (1979), FX-3 Super, and Super 2000, the Nikon FM-10 and FE-10, the Olympus OM-2000, and various Vivitar models. A Cosina design, the 1982 Cosina CX-2, was copied by the Russian optical firm LOMO as the popular Lomo LC-A.

In 1982 Cosina began to manufacture lenses in a variety of SLR manufacturers' lens mounts. In 1991 it started to produce glass molded aspheric lenses, and in 1996 plastic molded aspherical lenses. It began producing digital cameras in 1997.

At about this time, plans were started to produce a new 35 mm rangefinder camera, complete with wide and ultrawide lenses for the Leica screw mount, and also a basic camera -- similar to a rangefinder camera but without a rangefinder or viewfinder -- for mounting these. Having obtained the rights to the name Voigtländer from Ringfoto in Germany, Cosina introduced a Voigtländer 15 mm f/4.5 and 25 mm f/4 lens (neither of them rangefinder-coupled) and the Voigtländer Bessa L body in 1999. It quickly followed with a wider range of cameras (starting with the Bessa R, with viewfinder and rangefinder; and the Bessa T, with rangefinder but no viewfinder); and a set of lenses including the Heliar 12 mm f/5.6 lens, which on its introduction was the widest rectilinear lens ever marketed for still photography.

The Voigtländer cameras and lenses have been of great personal interest to Kobayashi Hirofumi 小林博文 (b.1953), the President of Cosina since the death in 1988 of his father (小林文治郎), the founder. The name Cosina now appears (conspicuously) on lenses for various SLR mounts, and less conspicuously on a widening range of cameras and lenses with the Voigtländer brand. Cosina manufactures a Rollei-branded rangefinder camera, and is acknowledged to manufacture (and to have helped design) an Epson digital rangefinder camera as well. Its manufacture of a new Zeiss Ikon Leica bayonet mount rangefinder camera and Zeiss lenses in Leica bayonet mount was announced in October 2004, and it is already (April 2006) producing these.

Cosina made again a jump into notoriety in the photography world by manufacturing for Zeiss their six new ZF lenses for Nikon mount. ZF is a new range of interchangeable lenses for Nikon SLR cameras, both analog and digital. ZF lenses bring the highly acclaimed Carl Zeiss image quality to the Nikon SLR camera system, which has been the preferred equipment of millions of professional and ambitious amateur photographers for decades.

Cosina products are distributed in Japan by Kenko.