The Bessa camera - history

Cosina Co. Ltd of Japan is a manufacturer best known for its range of Voigtlander Bessa 35mm rangefinder film cameras.

Once a leading German camera and lens manufacturer, Voigtlander was founded in 1756. One of its many outstanding products was the world's first variable focal length zoom lens for a still camera, the Zoomar f/2.8 36-82mm lens launched in 1959 for the Bessamatic 35mm single lens reflex. The company was a victim of far eastern products flooding Europe in the 1960s and it ceased to trade in the early 1970s.

Cosina acquired the Voigtlander brand licence rights and in the late 1990s launched the Bessa L, a mechanical camera designed for use with the tiny 15mm f/4.5 Aspherical Voigtlander Heliar lens. The lens has a Leica 39mm screw thread mount which was also used for other rangefinder models following the Bessa L as a new range of Heliar, Color-Skopar, Ultron, Nokton and other old and famous Voigtlander lens names were resurrected.

Cosina applies its perceptions of older philosophies of form and function in designing a wide range of 35mm film cameras for photography enthusiasts in the 21st century. The Bessa S cameras replicated the front window panel and Zeiss Contax derived lens mount of the 1960s Nikon SP rangefinder with its own CS mount accessory lenses. The company made a special Rollei 35 RF camera finished in bright silver chrome fitted with a Zeiss made 40mm f/2.8 Sonnar offering unmatched imaging performance. The Bessa R2M and R3M 250 Jahre Voigtlander models were anniversary editions made to celebrate 250 years of the Voigtlander brand. The cameras were available in silver chrome or black piano paint and fitted with a collapsible M bayonet 50mm, f/2 Heliar Classic lens.

At photokina 2006, Cosina announced protoypes of wide angle Bessa R4A and R4M 35mm models with 21-25-28-35 and 50mm bright line frames in the viewfinder. Cosina's enthusiasm for retro styling of film cameras appears unlimited. In addition to the regular Bessa models, the company makes the Zeiss Ikon and Zeiss SW camera for Carl Zeiss of Oberkochen, Germany, as well as the body and optical viewing system for the Epson Seiko RD1x digital rangefinder camera. Cosina also design and produce a wide range of lenses in L39 screw and M mounts for the Bessa range, some of the ZM lenses for Carl Zeiss as well as Ultron and Nokton designs in mount fittings for Nikon, Canon and Pentax single lens reflex cameras. Its most recent product launch is for the retro styled Bessa III folding bellows medium format film camera with twin 6X6cm or 6X7cm formats developed in conjunction with Fuji Film who will market the product in Japan as the Fuji 667.