Mine Six

Mine Six is the name of a series of 6×6 folding rangefinder cameras produced by Takane Kōgaku in the 1950s. All share the same body, based on that for the Mihama Six, and all have a unit-focussed 75mm f3.5 lens.

The first Mine Six

The first Mine Six, released in March 1955, was a major upgrade by Takane of the Sisley 55. The lens was now a Nittō Kominar (4 elements in 3 groups), and the shutter a Rectus with speeds of 1–200 and B. It still had two windows for film numbers; the frame size (6×6 or 6×4.5) was selected via a lever on the front of the camera.

Models with coupled rangefinder

The Mine Six IIF, introduced in mid-1955, with an S-Kominar lens, was the first to have a coupled rangefinder. It was advertised in the August 1955 issue of Asahi Camera for ¥13,000, including case.

It was followed in late 1956 by what was referred to as, successively, the Mine Six IIF改 (pronounced kai and meaning "revised"), the Mine Six IIFb and in the end simply the Mine Six IIF. (Probably all were engraved simply as "IIF") This had an upgraded shutter (a Copal, with speeds of 1–300 and B) and lens (an Asahi T-Takumar, with four elements in three groups).

The Mine Six IIISB (or IIIS, also advertised as the Super Mine Six), released in late 1956, was a more ambitious design, with framelines in the viewer (although no adjustment for parallax) and semi-automatic film advance: there was no red window on the back, and instead the film was wound between each frame until stopped by an internal counting system. The shutter was now a Copal MFX (with the same range of speeds). A variant of this camera, intended for export, was released slightly later and has a lever for film advance; this variant was consistently termed "IIIS" and the knob-wound variant termed "IIISB" to distinguish it from the lever-wound version, which was also available by special order within Japan. Most, perhaps all examples of both variants are engraved simply "IIIS".

Takane wanted to be able to advertise the camera as having a Zunow lens, but Zunow had no experience of designing lenses for quite this purpose. The solution was a three-way deal among Takane, Zunow, and Ofuna: the designer of the 75mm f3.5 lens for the Ofunaflex (1953) and slightly later Ofuna Six had recently moved from Ofuna to Zunow, so this earlier design was used for the Zunow "Zuminor" lens.

Thanks to the semi-automated film advance, the IIIS(B) can only be used for 6×6; 6×4.5 is not an option.

The IIISB was advertised in the November 1956 issue of Asahi Camera for ¥14,950; in the same advertisement was the IIFb, for ¥13,500.

Super 66

Takane's final Mine Six, released around September 1957, was the Mine Six Super 66. It was a first for Japan and a rarity anywhere: a folder with built-in exposure meter. Moreover, the meter was coupled to both aperture and shutter speed: the user would set one and adjust the other until the two needles matched in the meter display. The lens was again an Asahi T-Takumar. Film was inserted on the right and was wound to the left: the less common direction and the opposite way around from that of the earlier models of Mine Six. The "semi-automation" of the film advance of the IIIS(B) was dropped: film winding again depended on a red window at the back, which in turn allowed the use of 6×4.5 as well as 6×6 format.

The name appears on the top of the Super 66 without a space: "MINESIX", and thus the camera is sometimes referred to in this way.

The Super 66 was advertised in the September 1957 issue of Asahi Camera for ¥15,000.

The name "Mine"

"Mine" (ミネ) is an alternative reading of the second character in the name Takane (高嶺). It means "peak" or "summit" (cf "Zenit" and "Olympus"). It does not rhyme with "pine" but instead is pronounced as in "Minervois" (the wine), or more or less rhyming with "spinet".

Sources / 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 Pp. 192–3, 296–7, 368, 405.

• Hagiya Takeshi (萩谷剛). "Mine Shikkusu: Gunma-ken Takasaki-shi no kameramēkā" (ミネシックス：群馬県高崎市のカメラメーカー, Mine Six: A camera-maker in Takasaki, Gunma). Chapter 7 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 In Japanese only. First published in issue 27 (December 1993) of Kamera rebyū: Kurashikku kamera senka (カメラレビュー・クラシックカメラ専科), this history of Takane is based on Hagiya's interviews with four people who had been key figures in the company.

• 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. First published in issue 39 (September 1996) of Kamera rebyū: Kurashikku kamera senka (カメラレビュー・クラシックカメラ専科).

• Nakamura Fumio (中村文夫). Tsuzuki: Supuringu kamera de ikō: Mine shikkusu (続・スプリングカメラでいこう：ミネシックス, Let's use folders [continued]: The Mine Six). Shashin Kōgyō (写真工業), March 2003.

• Kamera rebyū: Kurashikku kamera senka (カメラレビュー・クラシックカメラ専科), no. 55. Has an article on the Mine Six.

• "Takane Minesix Super 66." Spotmatic: Trimestrale dell'Asahi Optical Historical Club, no. 38, October 2003.

External links

In English:

• Takane Minesix Super 66: A scandalously good "forgotten" folder by Anthony, aka antjam65 at his photo website, who is also a user of some very prestigious alternatives to the Super 66 yet says of it: "On every level I can think of (build quality, ease of use, optical quality, styling...) this camera equals or exceeds any folder I've used."

In Japanese:

• The Takumar 75/3.5 of a Mine Six IIF used on a K-mount Pentax at www.pentax-fan.jp
• Mine Six IIIS at Minosan's blog; you can click on the thumbnail for a larger photograph
• A page about folders with a Mine Six Super 66, at Nekosan's website