Mizuho (Kuribayashi)
The Mizuho (ミズホ) is a Japanese 4.5×6 folder made by Kuribayashi at the beginning of the 1940s, about which very few is known. At the time, Kuribayashi was already making at least three distinct lines of 4.5×6 folders: the Semi First, the Baby Semi First and the Semi Rotte, each with a different body. It is not known if the Mizuho was related to one of these of if it was yet another model. (The same question arises about the Hokoku.)
This Mizuho is certainly unrelated to the postwar Mizuho cameras.
Documents
The list of set prices compiled on October 25, 1940 and published in January 1941, mentions a "Mizuho Semi" (ミズホセミ) for ¥74, with no further detail.[1] A similar list dated November 1941 again mentions the camera and attributes it to Kuribayashi.[2]
The "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), listing Japanese camera production as of April 1943, mentioned a Mizuho 4.5×6 folder as made and distributed by Kuribayashi.[3] The lens is a three-element Mizuho 75/4.5 lens made by Ogasawara (like the Hokoku lens of the Hokoku).[4] The shutter is a Mizuho (5–150, T, B) made by Kuribayashi itself and identical to the First I shutter.[5]
No surviving example of the Mizuho has been observed so far.
Notes
- ↑ Template:Kakaku1940 short, type 3, section 4A.
- ↑ "Kamera no kōtei kakaku kanpō happyō", November 1941, type 3, section 4A.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), item 68.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), lens item Lc15.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), shutter item 24-P-2.
Bibliography
- "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" (国産写真機ノ現状調査, Inquiry into Japanese cameras), listing Japanese camera production as of April 1943. Reproduced in Supuringu kamera de ikou: Zen 69 kishu no shōkai to tsukaikata (スプリングカメラでいこう: 全69機種の紹介と使い方, Let's try spring cameras: Presentation and use of 69 machines). Tokyo: Shashinkogyo Syuppan-sha, 2004. ISBN 4-87956-072-3. Pp.180–7. Item 68.
- "Kamera no kōtei kakaku kanpō happyō" (カメラの公定価格官報発表, Official announcement of the set prices of the cameras), November 1941. Extract of a table listing Japanese camera production and setting the retail prices, reproduced in "Bebī Semi Fāsuto 'Kore ha bebī wo nanotta semi-ki da'" (ベビーセミファースト"これはベビーを名乗ったセミ機だ", Baby Semi First, 'this is a Semi camera called Baby'), an article by Furukawa Yasuo (古川保男) in Camera Collectors' News no. 277 (July 2000). Nishinomiya: Camera Collectors News-sha. P. 27. Type 3, section 4A.
- Template:Kakaku1940 Type 3, section 4A.
This camera is not listed in Sugiyama nor in Kokusan kamera no rekishi.
Kuribayashi prewar and wartime cameras ( ) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
rollfilm folders | ||||
Eagle | Speed Pocket | First Roll | First Center | Semi First | First Six | Baby Semi First | Semi Rotte | Hokoku | Mizuho | ||||
plate folders | rigid | SLR | TLR | unknown |
Mikuni | First | First Etui | Kokka | Romax | Tokiwa | Molby | Speed Reflex | First Reflex | Baby First |