Ōfuna

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Ofuna Optical Instrument Manufacturing Co Ltd (大船光学機械製作所, Ōfuna Kōgaku-Kikai Seisakusho) marketed a total of four cameras after the second world war.

The company originated during the war, when it started as a factory in Kamakura — just to the north of which is the town of Ōfuna — of Tomioka (which much later would join Yashica). The factory produced binoculars and other military optics. Tomioka's main factory (in Yukigaya-Ōtsuka, Tokyo) was destroyed by bombing toward the end of the war, and when the war finished Tomioka moved to a western outer suburb of Tokyo. Its Kamakura factory, which had escaped unscathed, raised capital independently and became an independent company.

• Herlight
• Ofunaflex
• Ofuna Six (non-coupled rangefinder)
• Ofuna Six (coupled rangefinder)

Source / further reading

In Japanese:

• Hagiya Takeshi (萩谷剛). "Ōfuna Kōgaku no kamera: Kamera kara kōgaku heiki e" (大船光学のカメラ：カメラから光学兵器へ, The cameras of Ōfuna Kōgaku: From cameras to military optics). Chapter 8 of Zunō kamera tanjō: Sengo kokusan kamera jū monogatari (ズノーカメラ誕生：戦後国産カメラ10物語, The birth of the Zunow camera: Ten stories of postwar Japanese camera makers). Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama, 1999. ISBN 4-257-12023-1.

Links

• Ofunaflex sample photos
• Ofuna Six: the photograph shows four folders with non-coupled rangefinders; clockwise from top left these are: Ofuna Six, Zenobia, Sisley 55 and Balm Six
• Ofunaflex specifications in Japanese at Japan Family Camera