Kansai Kōgaku
Kansai Kōgaku (関西光学) was a Japanese optical company that made telescopes and other astronomical devices. It was based in Kyoto.[1] During the war, Kansai Kōgaku was linked to the company Takashimaza Iida K.K. (高島座飯田㈱) and the distributor of the Kanko products was the company K.K. Kashimura Yōkō (㈱樫村洋行).[2]
Telescope cameras
It made the Miya Type 2 telescope camera (ミヤ二式反対望遠写真機) at the end of the 1930s or beginning of the 1940s. An original picture of the Miya Type 2 is reproduced in this page of the Old Telescope website but it is impossible to recognize the camera body.
It made the 450mm Kanko 2600 mirror lens, certainly from 1940 (year 2600 of the Japanese mythological calendar). It was advertised in March 1942 as available for the Leica and Contax mounts and in SLR mount.[3] The advertisement says that the resulting no lens telescope camera (レンズ無シの望遠写真機) was an improvement of the Miya Type 2 telescope camera. The advertising picture shows the Kanko 2600 mounted on a Flex Six or Shinkoflex camera body, and surviving examples of this combination are known. One is pictured in Sugiyama and another in this page of the Old Telescope website.[4]
The range advertised in 1942 also comprised the 450mm Kanko I, the 600mm Kanko II and the 1,000mm Kanko III. An original picture of the Kanko III is reproduced in this page of the Old Telescope website. The camera body is again a Flex Six or Shinkoflex.
Notes
- ↑ Its address in 1942 was Kyōto, Yamashina (京都山科). Source: Advertisement reproduced in the Gochamaze website.
- ↑ Advertisement reproduced in the Gochamaze website.
- ↑ Advertisement reproduced in the Gochamaze website.
- ↑ Sugiyama, item 6008, calls it the Flex Six (military version).
Links
In Japanese:
- Advertisement for the Kanko 2600 published in the March 1942 issue of Hōdō Shashin, reproduced in the Japanese camera page of the Gochamaze website
- Documentation page of the Old Telescope website
