Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Yashica Samurai

Yashica · Fixed lens · 18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical film travel · 1987

Also known as: Kyocera Samurai X3.0 · Yashica Samurai X3.0 · Samurai X4.0 · Samurai Z · Samurai ZL · ヤシカ サムライ · 京セラ サムライ

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Samurai X3.0 (1987) Half-frame 1987 — 60,000 sold in its first three months in Japan (Popular Photography, January 1988, via camera-wiki and Mike Eckman); no total published
Samurai X4.0 Half-frame 1988 — No figure published
Samurai Z and Z-L (early 1990s) Half-frame 1990 — No figure published
  1. Launch is 1987 or 1988 depending on the market: late 1987 in Japan, where it won the 1988 Camera Grand Prix and sold 60,000 in three months; a year later in America, where Mike Eckman says the half frame never sold and the autofocus and lens did not help.
  2. The frame is given as 17×24 mm in one line of camera-wiki's text and 18×24 in its specification table; the standard half frame is 18×24 and this entry uses it.
  3. The Samurai 4000ix of 1998 borrowed the name for an APS viewfinder camera. It is not a half-frame and not an SLR, and the exclusion list keeps it off this page.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Held like a camcorder: the grip is under the right hand, the lens points forward from a body taller than it is wide
  • A true SLR through the zoom — a pentaprism finder with diopter correction, not a separate window
  • RS: a recessed reset button for when the microprocessor hangs

Samurai X3.0 (1987):

  • Yashica Zoom 25–75mm f/3.5–4.3, fourteen elements, 49 mm filter; a 35–105 equivalent
  • Electronic leaf shutter 2 s – 1/500; autofocus with half-press lock; built-in TTL flash; 2CR5 lithium
  • Yashica or Kyocera branding, red or teal accents; 607 g

Samurai X4.0:

  • 25–100mm zoom, a 4× range, otherwise as the X3.0

Samurai Z and Z-L (early 1990s):

  • A simpler, cheaper model; the Z-L is the left-handed mirror image, one of very few cameras ever made for the left hand

Specifications

Format
18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical film travel · 72 exposures
Finder
Fixed pentaprism SLR finder, diopter +1 to −4 · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Electronic central (leaf) shutter · 2 s – 1/500, stepless · self-timer
Film advance
Motorised advance and rewind; sequence mode
Meter
Two-segment silicon photodiode, programmed automatic exposure; DX ISO 50–3200, ISO 100 for uncoded film; date imprint optional
Motor drive
built-in motor
Weight
607 g
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

History

By 1987 the half frame was a Japanese habit rather than a market, and Kyocera tried to make it modern. The Samurai X3.0 is a true single-lens reflex — a pentaprism finder looking through the lens — built into a body shaped like the compact video cameras of the day, gripped under the right hand with the lens pointing forward. The lens is a fourteen-element 25–75mm zoom, a 35–105 equivalent on the small frame, with autofocus, motorised advance, a built-in flash and a leaf shutter from 2 seconds to 1/500. It won the Camera Grand Prix in Japan for 1988 and sold sixty thousand copies in its first three months there. The X4.0 stretched the zoom to 100mm; the Z of the early 1990s simplified it, and the Z-L mirrored the whole camera for left-handed users.

Abroad it went nowhere, and Mike Eckman’s list of reasons is the reviewers’ consensus: Americans did not want half frames, the camcorder shape does not in fact suit one hand, the lens is fair rather than good and the meter runs bright. Casual Photophile is harsher — the worst of all worlds, an SLR’s bulk with a point-and-shoot’s controls and an autofocus that takes seconds and misses in daylight — while Analog.Cafe and Shellzine, shooting one in the 2020s for under a hundred dollars, found the frames needed no editing and the night modes worked. The name was reused in 1998 for an APS camera that shares nothing with it.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Yashica Samurai
Yashica Samurai X3.0 — BlueBreezeWiki, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Yashica Samurai? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $110 across 113 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $95–$130). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $110.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$110$95–$130113
2026-09-06$110$95–$130113

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 184 more listings

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Konica Recorder · Olympus Pen F

Sources (5)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.