Cameras made in Japan
What is it? This is the Canon MC (short for Micro Compact), a compact fully automatic point and shoot 35mm camera released by Canon in April 1984. The MC was conceived as an ultra portable camera to compete with models like the Olympus XA series, except it added the convenience…
This is a Fujica Drive, a half-frame 35mm scale focus camera made by Fuji Photo Film Co. starting in 1964. The Drive was a variant of the company’s Fujica Half adding automatic film advance via a mechanical spring wound wheel. Both the Drive and Half cameras had an excellent 5-element…
This is the third and final part of a 48 page article about the Japanese Photo Industry which originally appeared as special section of the April 1957 issue of Popular Photography magazine. The second part of this series can be read here. Unlike the first two parts of this Japanese…
This is an Anscomark M 35mm rangefinder camera made in 1960 by Riken Optical Co., Ltd. (Ricoh) for GAF USA who at the time distributed cameras in the United States under the ANSCO brand. The camera was developed by Riken for GAF in exchange for some of it’s photocopier technologies. The…
This is the second part of a 48 page article about the Japanese Photo Industry which originally appeared in as special section of the April 1957 issue of Popular Photography magazine. The first part of this series can be read here. In this section, there are even more fascinating stories…
What is it? This is a Minolta Autocord Twin Lens Reflex camera made by Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko between the years of 1955 and 1966. The entire Autocord series was very popular and produced several variants. This particular model is an export model for North America, and was made in 1958. …
I was born in 1978, and for my whole life, Japanese products were always good. Cameras, televisions, stereos, watches, video game consoles, cars, and a huge number of other consumer products proudly proclaimed to be “Made in Japan”. This wasn’t always so. As recently as the late 1800s, Japan was…
What is it? This is a Pentax PC35AF, a 35mm compact camera made by the Asahi Optical Co. in Tokyo Japan between the years of 1982 and 1984. It was the first compact Pentax camera capable of auto focus and was the first in a long running PC-series of cameras…
What is it? This is a Canon AL-1 35mm Single Lens Reflex camera which was first introduced in March 1982. It was the last in the Canon A-series which started with the AE-1 in 1976, and was one of Canon’s last cameras to use their aging FD lens mount. The AL-1’s…
What is it? This is a Konica III, a 35mm rangefinder made by Konishiroku Photo Industries in Japan between the years of 1956 to 1958. As the name suggests, this camera is a third in a series of compact, solid bodied, 35mm rangefinder cameras made by Konishiroku. The entire Konica…
What is it? This is a Minolta Hi-Matic E 35mm rangefinder camera made by Minolta Camera Co. starting in 1971. It was one of the last quality Minolta rangefinder cameras with fast sub f/2 lenses before the line was replaced with cheap point and shoot models that were manufactured by third…
What is it? This is an Olympus XA2 scale focus point and shoot 35mm camera made by Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. between the years of 1980 and 1986. It was a simpler and less expensive version of the Olympus XA camera released a year earlier. The entire XA series was very…
