Herlight
The Herlight is a Japanese box or pseudo TLR made by Ōfuna Kōgaku from 1947.[1] It normally takes 4×4cm pictures on 127 film, but at least one prototype was made to take 24×36mm pictures on 35mm film.
Contents
Description of the 4×4cm Herlight
The Herlight is a box-shaped metal camera, and can be described as a box or a pseudo TLR. The whole body is painted in a chocolate colour, and has no covering at all. The camera is held by a handle attached to the left-hand side.
There is a large brilliant finder at the top, above the lens. The name Herlight is written above the camera behind the finder eyepiece. The film is advanced by a knob on the photographer's right. The removable back contains a single red window and is locked in place by a latch under the body.
The shutter has two blades behind the lens.[2] It is controlled by a square selector on the right-hand side, with B and I indications for Bulb and Instant.[3] There is a thread for a cable release just below the speed selector, and the main release lever is further below.
The lens is a fixed focus 5cm f/6 called Triplet Ofunar. The aperture is selected by a knob under the lens. The aperture scale, with 6, 9, 12, 16 settings, is inscribed on a riveted metal plate with a hexagonal OFUNA logo.
 
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| Herlight, 4×4cm pictures on 127 film. (Image rights) |
Documents and actual examples
No period document mentioning the Herlight is known so far. The oldest reported mention of the camera is in the 1956–57 camera annual of the Japan Camera Industry Association, where the Herlight is said to have been sold from March 1947 to March 1949.[4]
Only three surviving examples of the 4×4cm Herlight are known. The example pictured in this page has an unknown lens number, whose first digit is "1", either in the 1xx or 1xxx range. Its back is striated back and has the red window offset to the left and protected by a horizontally sliding cover. The example displayed in the JCII museum has lens no.2750; the features of the back are unknown.[5] The third example, pictured in Sugiyama and in Hagiya, has lens no.3308; its back is plain flat and has the red window in the middle, protected by a vertically sliding cover.
Notes
- ↑ Date: Sugiyama, item 4147; Watakushi no ni-gan-refu kamera-ten, p.28.
- ↑ Hagiya, pp.153–4 of Sengo kokusan kamera jū monogatari.
- ↑ B and I: Sugiyama, item 4147.
- ↑ Document mentioned in Hagiya, p.154 of Sengo kokusan kamera jū monogatari.
- ↑ Example pictured in Watakushi no ni-gan-refu kamera-ten, p.28.
Bibliography
- 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. Originally published in 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.39, September 1996. ISBN 4-257-13007-5. Modan kurashikku renzu-hen (特集：モダンクラシックレンズ編, Modern classic lenses)..
- 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. Item 4147.
- Watakushi no ni-gan-refu kamera-ten (私の二眼レフカメラ展, Exhibition of twin lens reflex cameras). Tokyo: JCII Camera Museum, 1992. (Exhibition catalogue, no ISBN number.) P.28.
This camera is not listed in Kokusan kamera no rekishi.
Links
In Japanese:
- Herlight in the Rieki-juku camera blog (text only)
