Norita
Norita Kōgaku （ノリタ光学) was a Japanese lens and camera maker. It was reportedly founded in 1951 by Kurumada Toshio (車田利夫), a former employee of Tōkyō Kōgaku.[1] The company apparently worked as a subcontractor for other companies, and little is known of its early products. It is said that Norita made pentaprisms for SLR cameras,[1] but this activity could only flourish after pentaprisms became common on Japanese cameras, around 1960.
After some time, the company started making lenses too, notably supplying the Rittron lenses sold by Musashino on the Rittreck 6×6 and at least some of the Zenzanon lenses sold by Bronica.[1][2] One of the lens designers was Maruyama Shūji (丸山修治), another former employee of Tōkyō Kōgaku, who previously worked on the postwar Simlar 5cm f/0.7.[3]
In 1972, the Musashino company closed its doors, and Norita took over the production of the Rittreck 6×6, which was slightly modified and rebadged Norita 66.[2] The company entered distribution agreements with Graflex, who sold the camera in the United States as the Graflex Norita.
In 1976, the company stopped the production of cameras and camera lenses, but remained in business, making projection lenses and other products.[1] It became a dependent company of Enplas in 2000 and was renamed Enplas Optics (エンプラスオプティクス) in 2001, but shut its doors in 2005.[1]
Products
- Norita 66 and Graflex Norita 6×6cm SLR, 1972
- Rittron lenses for the Rittreck 6×6
- Noritar lenses for the Norita 66
- some Zenzanon lenses for Bronica, including a 150mm[2]
- lenses for 35mm cameras[4]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Norita Kōgaku in the Japanese Wikipedia.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Norita Club page 2, at the Topcon Club. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "Norita Club 2" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ This page of the Topcon Club.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedNorita Club 1
Links
In Japanese with some English:
- Norita Club page 1 and page 2, in the Topcon Club website
In Japanese:
- Norita Kōgaku in the Japanese Wikipedia
