Ōfuna
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)
[More coming soon]
Source / further reading
- 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 In Japanese only. First published in issue 39 (September 1996) of Kamera rebyū: Kurashikku kamera senka (カメラレビュー・クラシックカメラ専科).
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
