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Krafty5260
Tinkerer
Username: Krafty5260
Post Number: 24
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 18, 2008 - 07:23 pm: | 
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Many antique German and Japanese (well, Yashica anyway) have the suffix " -Mat" Zeiss Werra-Mat, Yashica-Mat, etc. I understand the Yashica Mat cameras have a crank handle film advance, instead of a twist knob, but is there more to "Mat" than that it just sounds really cool? I even searched Google for German definitions, but camera names seem more made up than car names and so far I'm not getting anywhere. I am however, thinking of naming my next dog Tessar-Mat.
thank you,
Michael |
Dgillette4
Tinkerer
Username: Dgillette4
Post Number: 199
Registered: 04-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 18, 2008 - 08:12 pm: |
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Automatic or semi-automatic |
Markus
Tinkerer
Username: Markus
Post Number: 44
Registered: 08-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 18, 2008 - 09:10 pm: |
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In German, that would be Automat or Halbautomat, so there you go. |
Krafty5260
Tinkerer
Username: Krafty5260
Post Number: 25
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 - 06:29 am: |
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Hey guys,
Thanks, a lot - that helps. But, not so fast. Now, I'm thinking, what was automatic on these cameras? To me, automatic is point and shoot. Is it the light meter versus no light meter that makes them automatic, or what? Sorry to be so dense, but I'm absorbing all this camera information as fast as I can. thanks again.
Michael |
Charlie
Tinkerer
Username: Charlie
Post Number: 156
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 - 06:46 am: |
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The shutter was cocked at the sme time the film was wound, an improvement (?) over earlier models where the shutter was cocked sparately. |
Adrian
Tinkerer
Username: Adrian
Post Number: 163
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 - 01:41 pm: |
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At least in the case of the Werra, I suspect that it's the lightmeter coupling that is important, especially as the shutter had always been cocked by the film wind on a Werra. The -mat suffix appeared later in the production run. The Werramat had a coupled lightmeter, whilst the Werramatic (are you beginning to wish you'd never asked?) had a coupled rangefinder as well as the lightmeter.
Adrian |
Rick_oleson
Tinkerer
Username: Rick_oleson
Post Number: 560
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 - 06:16 pm: |
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Clearly, the word "Automatic" has evolved in meaning over the years. In the case of the Rolleiflex Automat it meant that the shutter cocking was coupled to the film wind, and the frame counter had a mechanical way of finding Frame 1 (The YashicaMat has the former feature but not the latter). Later, any camera with a coupled meter was referred to as "automatic", a usage which went away when the term came to be applied to cameras in which the meter directly controlled either the shutter speed or the aperture. Today, any camera with a focus ring on the lens is called "manual"..... |
Krafty5260
Tinkerer
Username: Krafty5260
Post Number: 26
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2008 - 10:31 am: |
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I've been peripherally involved with photography since junior high school (35 years ago), but last summer I had some time on my hands while my 83 year old father was in the hospital for open heart surgery, then rehab. I also needed a distraction. Digital's arguably easy, but I've never been much for new or easy ways of doing things. Film has always held a certain fascination. So, I started studying photography again. Goodness, gracious - there's so much more than meets the eye.
I list cameras together with sewing machines. Once, someone decided there must be a way to mechanize sewing. In five million years, I'd never figure it out, but someone did. The same with cameras. Chemicals on a piece of glass in the dark, exposed to light through a lens for a brief period of time. Who'd have thunk it? And then, to make that chemical cocktail into something useful. Sheesh, sometimes, it makes me feel very small.
By the way, Dad's doing great, and I've just been endlessly fascinated by these tremendous little machines. I know this dissertation isn't completely camera repair related, so thanks for your indulgence. I'm eternally grateful to this group for its help and patience. I'm afraid to imagine what percentage of photographic knowledge I possess compared to what I want to know.
Thanks again,
Michael Kraft
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma |
Rick_oleson
Tinkerer
Username: Rick_oleson
Post Number: 562
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2008 - 12:41 pm: |
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the cool thing about knowledge is that it's infinite, so everybody is at the same percentile level. |
Mikel
Tinkerer
Username: Mikel
Post Number: 90
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 20, 2008 - 07:16 pm: |
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Great question and it turned into a nice thread.
Charlie got it off on the right track. The "Mats" also advanced the film to the next frame "automatically" with one stroke and counted it without the need for a red window.
Lost my own Dad at age 83 and still miss him some days. Therapy is where you find it and camera repair has been welcome therapy for me at times.
Best wishes to you and your Dad.
Mike |
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