Yashica Electro G lens converted to M mount

JeffM

JeffM

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The 45mm Color Yashinon DX 1.7 after all these years still has to be my personal favorite lens. And as much as I love the Electro it’s attached to I’m still dying to use it with manual control.

Does anyone out there know of a conversion house that will modify this lens to M39 LTM or M mount? I am willing pay top dollar for the conversion, at least within reason… or prices similar to the Contax G to M mount conversions. I know this is a speciality job that would require complete rehousing so it would be neither cheap nor fast (removal of the shutter and all that). But a properly coupled M mount Yashinon is something I would easily trade the value of my 50mm summicron. I can of course provide the GSN needed for conversion. Anyone out there equipped enough to try this or know of a place that would be willing to do it? I browsed through a forum with someone trying to do this once but I don’t think they ever met success.

I’d also ask the fine people at japanexposures if they’d do a specialty job like this but I do not speak Japanese. Any leads? Thanks in advance!
 
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You will pay top dollar if you get one from japaneseexposures. I doubt if it's worth the expense. They also don't ship out of Japan.

Bill
 
I've wanted to do this with a few fixed lens RF's that I've owned. I tried with one but that was long before I knew the ins & outs of the engineering complexity that those lenses were built with.

If I had the time, I'd do one these days.
The cool thing about a lens like the Yashinon is that it has ample registration distance to mount in a donor lens focusing helical.

The theory of it is really simple, but making it work is a bit more complex. I'd say find a former Soviet Union lens and use it as a donor. After you get the elements into the barrel with infinity focus set & all the last and most complex task for the "shadetree camera repairman" is grinding the cam angle to properly synch with the focusing distance of the rangefinder.

That's not hard to find out as it's just a measurement of how much the lens moves from infinity to close-focus then matching it to the Leica body focusing cam.

It's quite a project but can be done by a person who has the proper tools and the desire to do so.

A few years back I was attempting to modify my favorite SLR lens (SMC Takumar 50mm f/1.4) to Leica M mount with RF coupling. I found that the focus rate of the Pentax lens was within .02mm difference from a DR Summicron when focused from infinity to a measured 1 meter. For all intents & purposes, that meant the two were exactly the same since the mechanical "slop" of the RF coupling cam is greater.
I shelved that project and eventually sold that particular lens while moving to a new house but I still have the data. All I'd need to do is to transfer the movement of the pentax lens directly to the RF coupler in my M4. No lens cam grinding necessary.

For your modification, you might try Kevin Li at kevincameras.com. He deals a fair amount of modified lenses and may be able to help you with the job.
 
You will find that many SLR lenses are made to the "Leica" standard of a nominal 51.6mm. Pop Photo did a test of 32 50mm lenses in 1976 and measured the actual focal length of each. Some lenses are easier to convert than others. A 45mm lens will require a custom cam, new optical housing for the stand-off between the front and rear group, and a new aperture mechanism. The 45/1.7 is a standard Planar formula lens, 1-2-2-1 configuration. I think with a little research, you could find a lens in native Leica mount that is close to it. I would suggest the Canon 50/1.4 in LTM. It is a standard 1-2-2-1 configuration, and gives a similar look of the Yashica.

I would also suggest looking at a Yashica LYNX fixed-lens RF. Manual control, and the lens construction is similar. I kept the Lynx 14e and sold the Yashica GT.

A custom conversion of this lens would probably run the cost of a Summicron. A "Hack" of the lens might be impossible. Maybe start with a Jupiter-3 and yank out the optics and use spacers for the optics from the Yashica. The optics module is set by simple shims, so it could be adjusted for stand-off. You would need to index the Cam for the 45mm focal length. I'll bet Amedeo could do this if he waanted to.

My Hacked lens: Half Sonnar, Half Xenon. 1-3-2-1 Configuration.

3248139239_79d76422c4.jpg
 
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Thanks everyone for your responses and suggestions. I've gotten a response from Dirk and it looks like he is on the job! Hopefully MS optical will be able to do the conversion. Fingers crossed!

Bryan- that sonnar/xenon looks gorgeous! I wish I had that kind of skill.
 
I think it's easier to convert the Electro to manual operation... At least that's what I intend to do with a broken GSN. The shutter could have a little lever pointing out in the front, with say four speeds, the rest is adjustable with the aperture setting. No more POD. No batteries. But on the other hand, why bother and buy an Lynx 1000 instead?
 
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Bravo to the tech that converted the lens. I wonder what kind of barrel the glass is fixed to. A custom machined barrel? I've seen it used for converted Contax G lenses.
 
Jeff - congrats on successfully having the yashinon converted. Glad you did so, because I'm excited to receive the 50'cron v6 that this lens will replace.

Looking forward to seeing images from the yashinon.

CHeers,
Ken

JeffM said:
Just got an email update, the latest news from Dirk! Hooollly.... drool. I'm too lazy to upload these so I'll just link to the photos on Flickr...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/megaperls/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/megaperls/4275577036/in/photostream/

Looks like the conversion has been successful. And FAST! Woohoo!!
Click to expand...
 
Glad you got ahold of Dirk. Japanexposures doesn't do the conversions, they act as a shipper/middleman for MS Optical. I have had a Contax G 45 and 28 converted to M-mount this way. It is not cheap, but it is fun. Dirk is great to deal with.

Ben Marks
 
Supercool. And now I'm seriously looking at one of their Voigtlander Prominent-to-M mount adapters, to be able to use my father's old Color Skopar.
 
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