Yashica Ninja Star / AF-J
Like a shadow in the night, the Yashica Ninja Star stealthily tracks its target, snapping off photos before the subject even knows the Ninja Star is there and then retreats back to night leaving nary a trace of its presence. That might be the expectation the Yashica Ninja Star encourages but reality often doesn't follow what our imaginations cook up.
The Yashica Ninja Star is an autofocus, compact 35mm "point and shoot" camera produced by Kyocera and released in 1987. It is a rebranded version of the Yashica AF-J and depending the market where you buy yours you can find them under either name. Interestingly, the "J" was a series of cameras produced by Yashica dating back to the original Yashica J of 1961. The AF-J brought the series into the autofocus camera game. Also, getting back to the Ninja Star name, Kyocera would release a Ninja Star II (otherwise known as the AF-J II) and a Ninja Star Tele/Wide that had a dual focal length lens.
Brief backstory aside, the Yashica Ninja Star has a prime 32mm f3.5 lens. Our research suggests it is four elements in three groups design. Like other cameras of its era, it features a sliding cover to protect the lens and power the camera on/off. Film advance and rewind is motorized and this may be where reality and imagination diverge the most with the Ninja Star. There is nothing at all stealthy about this camera's motorized functions. There is a built-in electronic flash that conveniently pops up a small button on the top of the camera when not enough light is detected by the camera. The user can push the button back down to turn the flash off - allowing a small degree of manual override. Film speed is detected by DX code and the Ninja Star can accommodate an ISO range of 100-1600. Lastly, focusing is done via active infrared tied to a central spot in the viewfinder and activated with a full depress of the shutter button (sorry no pre-focusing and recomposing allowed).
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