Aram
Aram Kōgaku Kenkyūjo (アラム光学研究所) was a Japanese company. It was founded in 1953 by Nakagawa Kenzō (中川幹三), who had created the Leotax rangefinder camera and founded Shōwa Kōgaku in 1938.[1]
In the summer of 1954, the company announced the Aram Automat, a 6×6 folder with many advanced features. It was produced in a simpler form as the Aram Six, but only about 100 examples were made.
Aram Kōgaku also worked as a subcontractor of Konishiroku, supplying the auto-stop advance mechanism of the Pearl III at a pace of about 2,000 per month.[2] The company disappeared after the failure of the Aram Six.
Notes
- ↑ Sugiyama, pp. 47 and 76, based on an interview of Mr Nakagawa himself. The name Nakagawa Kennosuke (中川謙之助) is given in Lewis, p. 86, and in Japanese magazines of the 1950s (according to Kuno, pp. 96–7 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 8), but this is surely a mistake.
- ↑ Sugiyama, p. 76.
Bibliography
- Kuno Mikio (久野幹雄). "Aramu shikkusu no nazo" (アラムシックスの謎, Aram Six mystery). Kamera Rebyū: Kurashikku Kamera Senka (カメラレビュー クラシックカメラ専科) / Camera Review: All about Historical Cameras no.8, September 1986. No ISBN number. Supuringu kamera (スプリングカメラ, special issue on spring cameras). Pp. 96–7.
- Lewis, Gordon, ed. The History of the Japanese Camera. Rochester, N.Y.: George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography & Film, 1991. ISBN 0-935398-17-1 (paper), 0-935398-16-3 (hard). P. 86.
- Sugiyama, Kōichi (杉山浩一); Naoi, Hiroaki (直井浩明); Bullock, John R. The Collector's Guide to Japanese Cameras. 国産カメラ図鑑 (Kokusan kamera zukan). Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama, 1985. ISBN 4-257-03187-5.
