Comet (3×4)

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The Comet (コメット) is a Japanese camera taking 3×4cm exposures on 127 film. It was distributed by Ueda Shashinki-ten in 1940 and 1941.

Description of the body

The Comet has a rounded metal body. There is a telescopic tube supporting the lens and shutter assembly. The top plate is removed for film loading, in a style made popular by the Picny and Gelto. It supports the advance knob at the right end, a knob used to open and close the camera, the tubular finder in the middle, a nameplate that is certainly engraved COMET and the accessory shoe at the left end.

Advertising, lens and shutter equipment

An advertisement dated August 1940[1] listed the Comet for ¥55 with a front-cell focusing Lucomar Anastigmat f/4.5 lens and a Comet shutter giving 25, 50, 100, B, T speeds. The shutter plate is written COMET in the advertising picture.

In advertisements dated December 1940 and January 1941[2], the lens name was no more given but the rest of the features was similar. The price was ¥65 in December 1940.

The Comet was listed for ¥77 in the Template:Kakaku1940 short compiled in October 1940, with no further detail.[3]

The only known surviving example is pictured in Sugiyama. It has a front-cell focusing 5cm f/4.5 lens reportedly called Helios Anastigmat (certainly made by Tōkyō Shashin Kōgaku) and an unmarked shutter giving T, B, 5–200 speeds.

Notes

  1. Published in Asahi Camera, reproduced in Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p. 76.
  2. Both advertisements published in Asahi Camera, reproduced by Kokusan kamera no rekishi on pp. 72 and 77.
  3. Template:Kakaku1940 short, type 1, section 7.

Bibliography