Atom Six

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Japanese Six (6×6)
Postwar models (edit)
folding
Aires Viceroy | Angel Six | Aram Six | Astoria Super Six | Atom Six | Balm Six | Baron | Beauty Six (1950) | Beauty Six (1953) | Calm Six | Carl Six | Centre Six | Crown | Crystar Six | Daido Six | Dorima Six | Doris Six | Ehira Six | Elbow Six | First Six | Flora Six | Fodor Six | Frank Six | Fujica Six | Super Fujica Six | Futami Six | Gotex | Grace Six | Kohken Chrome Six | Kyowa Six | Liner Six | Lyra Six | Mamiya Six | Middl Six | Mihama Six | Mine Six | Minon Six | Mizuho Six | Motoka Six | Mount Six | Muse Six | Super Naiku | Ofuna Six | Olympus Six | Olympus Chrome Six | Orion Six | Oscar Six | Pigeon Six | Planet | Please Six | Pluto Six | Poppy Six | Press Van | Press Van-120 | Proud Chrome Six | Proud Super Six | Renown Six | Ricoh Six | Ruvikon | Ruvinal | Sanon Six | Silver Six | Sisley 1 | Sisley 2 & 3 | Sister Six | Tenar Six | Toho Six | Tomic | Toyoca Six | Ugein Six | Wagen Six | Walcon 6 | Welmy Six | Wester | Windsor Six
rigid or collapsible
Dia Six | Ehira Chrome Six | Enon Six | Flora | Flashline | Fujipet | Harmony | Mikono-6 | Orion | Ponix | Rich-Ray-6 | Shumy | Weha Chrome Six
Japanese 6×6 TLR, pseudo TLR and medium format SLR ->
Japanese Semi (4.5×6) and older 6×9 ->

The Atom Six is a folding camera for 6×6 and 6×4.5 exposures, advertised by Atom Kōki Seisakusho. It has a 75mm f3.5 lens; focusing is by movement of the front lens element. The shutter has speeds of 1–200 and B. Advertisements for both model I and model II were published from the July 1952 to the September 1953 issues of the Japanese photographic magazines.

The Atom Six I looks from the front as if it is a rangefinder camera with the viewfinder window at the center and the extra rangefinder window to the right. However, the smaller second window is not for a rangefinder but instead for a right-angle finder: the top of the camera has a small viewing screen. The camera has a Seriter or Atom lens. The shutter is said to be either an NKS or AKS shutter. The picture in McKeown's book shows a B, 1–200 shutter marked ATOM. A dealer mentions an EKS B, 1–200 shutter, and the camera pictured at the Japan Family Camera page has a shutter marked S. LUNA.

The design of the Atom Six II is very distinctive; viewed from the front, it has two rectangular viewfinder windows (that to the left for 6×6 and that to the right perhaps for 6×4.5), with the extra window for the right-angle finder between the two. It has either a four-element Atomic lens and an NKS shutter or a three-element Atom lens and an AKS shutter. There is also an Atomar lens, seen on an example at a Yahoo Japan auction.

Source / further reading

  • Asahi Camera (アサヒカメラ) editorial staff. Shōwa 10–40nen kōkoku ni miru kokusan kamera no rekishi (昭和10〜40年広告にみる国産カメラの歴史, Japanese camera history as seen in advertisements, 1935–1965). Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1994. ISBN 4-02-330312-7 Items 363–4.

Links

In Japanese: