Cameras made in Japan
This is an Olympus Ace, a 35mm interchangeable lens rangefinder camera produced by Olympus Optical Co., Ltd starting in 1958. The Ace was the first and only rangefinder camera produced by Olympus with interchangeable lenses and had features like an automatic exposure counter, rapid wind lever, projected frame lines, and…
This is a Tomioka Lausar, an interchangeable lens roll film camera made by Tomioka Kōgaku Kenkyūjo in Tokyo, Japan in 1937. The Lausar has a focal plane shutter and a body that is modeled to look like the Leica rangefinder, except it doesn’t have a rangefinder and it shoots 3cm…
This is a Minolta V3, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko K.K. starting in September 1960. The Minolta V3 was the follow up to the earlier Minolta V2 from 1958, expanding the top shutter speed to a record high 1/3000 with the clever use of its Optiper-Citizen-HS…
This is a PCA Prismat V-90, a 35mm SLR made by Mamiya Camera Co. Ltd. for the Photronic Corporation of America of Takoma Park, MD starting in 1961. The PCA Prismat V-90 is a rebadge of the Mamiya Prismat PH, which itself was part of Mamiya’s robust Prismat SLR family. …
This is a Monte 35A, a 35mm scale focus camera produced by Shinsei Optical Works in Tokyo, Japan starting in 1953. The Monte 35A was a subtle update to an earlier Monte 35 in which the shutter release was relocated to the top plate, an accessory shoe was added, and…
This is a Konica Recorder DD, a half frame 35mm point and shoot camera made by Konica of Japan starting in 1985. The “DD” in the model name indicates that this was a version of the camera with a data back as compared with the non DD model which was…
This is a Yashica Dental-Eye, a 35mm SLR camera made by Kyocera starting in 1985. The Dental-Eye, as the name suggests, is a specialized camera produced primarily for the dental industry allowing for extreme closeups, but it was also used by eye doctors and in other specialized medical and scientific…
This is a Chinon Bellami, a compact 35mm point and shoot camera made by Chinon International Corp in Tokyo, Japan starting in 1980. The Chinon Bellami was one of the smallest full frame 35mm cameras ever made and has a design and feature set very comparable to the Olympus XA2…
In the early days of still photography, the idea of a variable focal length lens was fantasy. Since the dawn of photography, lens designers, engineers, and mathematicians worked at calculating optical formulas to correct for astigmatism, coma, spherical aberrations, and a vast number of other optical anomalies in lenses of…
This is a Fujifilm GF670 Professional, a folding dual format medium format rangefinder camera, jointly made by Cosina and Fujifilm of Japan. The Fujifilm GF670 went on sale in March 2010 and was one of the very last Fujifilm cameras and shoots both 6cm x 6cm and 6cm x 7cm…
This is the Yashica YF, a 35mm rangefinder camera made by Yashica Co., Ltd. in Japan starting in 1959. The Yashica YF was built very shortly after Yashica’s acquisition of Nicca the year before and although credited to Yashica, is a mostly cosmetic refresh of Nicca’s earlier type III rangefinders. …
This is a Nikon 28Ti, a premium point and shoot 35mm camera made in Japan by the Nikon Corporation starting in 1994. The Nikon 28Ti was the follow-up to the Nikon 35Ti from the year prior, widening the focal length to 28mm and adding a new flash mode and all…
