is a manufacturer of high-end optical glass, optical precision equipment, cameras, video and electronic related equipment, based in Nakano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

History

thumb|275px|Cosina Hi-Lite

thumb|275px|Cosina 19–35 f/3.5-4.5 AF lens

Cosina is the successor to Nikō (or "Nikoh"), a company set up as a lens processing factory in February 1959, which was a pioneer in optical polishing and lens grinding in Japan.

In 2016, Cosina manufactured a Nokton 1,4/ 58 mm after 2003 a second time. For this lenses a Topcon-construction was used.

Voigtländer

thumb|Wide angle lens Cosina Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5 Color-Skopar SL II Aspherical

thumb|Nokton 1,4/ 58 mm

Cosina's "Voigtländer" products are sometimes referred to as Cosina Voigtländer.

The Cosina Voigtländer cameras and lenses have been of great personal interest to ( 1953), the President of Cosina since the death in 1988 of his father , 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 manufactured the rangefinder camera Rollei 35 RF for Rollei Fototechnic, and is acknowledged to have manufactured (and to have helped design) the Epson digital rangefinder camera R-D1 as well. Its manufacture of a new Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera with Leica M-mount, and Zeiss lenses in Leica bayonet mount, was announced in October 2004, and had begun producing these by April 2006.

Other manufacturers

Cameras

Cosina is also well known for manufacturing 35 mm SLR cameras to the specifications of other manufacturers and distributors, such as the Canon T60, the Nikon FM10 and FE10, the Olympus OM2000, Konica TC-X, Yashica FX-3 and FX-3 Super, and various Vivitar models. For this models the CT-1 was used.

A Cosina design, the 1982 Cosina CX-2, was copied by the Russian optical firm LOMO as the popular Lomo LC-A.

Lenses

Cosina manufactures manual focus SLR lenses for Carl Zeiss AG with: Leica (ZM), Nikon (ZF), Pentax (ZK), Canon EOS (ZE), and M42 (ZS) lens screw mounts.

Distribution

Cosina products are distributed in Japan by Kenko.

See also

  • List of photographic equipment makers

References

  • Cosina
  • List of distributors of Cosina's products
  • japanexposures.com 4 May 2009, Cosina lens and camera factory tour report
  • Canon EOS Technoclopedia: Cosina AF Lenses for Canon EF – a lens chart with technical data, comments and test references