Norita
Norita Kōgaku （ノリタ光学) was a Japanese lens and camera maker. It was founded in 1951 by Norita Toshio (車田利夫),[1] a former employee of Tōkyō Kōgaku.[2] The company worked as a subcontractor for other companies, starting with lenses for binoculars and moving via binocular prisms to pentaprisms for SLR cameras including the Rittreck 6×6 of Musashino.[1]
After some time, the company started making lenses too, notably supplying the Rittron lenses sold by Musashino for the Rittreck 6×6[1] and at least some of the Zenzanon lenses sold by Bronica.[2][3] 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.[4]
In 1969,[1] the Musashino company went bankrupt, and Norita took over the machine tools and some of the staff from production of the Rittreck 6×6, which was modified and rebadged Norita 66.[1] The new camera was produced for export from 1971,[5] and released on the Japanese market in 1972.[6] The company entered distribution agreements with Graflex (a division of Singer), which sold the camera in the United States as the Graflex Norita.
In 1976, the company stopped the production of cameras and camera-related products, but remained in business, making projection lenses and other products.[7] In 1994 Hagiya Takeshi wrote that the Norita products his readers were most likely to encounter were the three (RGB) lenses for large television projectors.[7]
Norita 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.[2]
Contents
Products
- Norita 66 and Graflex Norita 6×6cm SLR, 1972
- Rittron lenses for the Rittreck 6×6
- Noritar lenses for the Norita 66
- Noritar lenses for the Graflex XL
- some Zenzanon lenses for Bronica, including a 150mm[3]
- lenses for 35mm cameras[8]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Hagiya, p.82.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Norita Kōgaku in the Japanese Wikipedia.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Norita Club page 2, at the Topcon Club.
- ↑ This page of the Topcon Club.
- ↑ Hagiya, pp.82 and 90.
- ↑ Hagiya, p.87, and Norita Club page 1, at the Topcon Club.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Hagiya, p.90.
- ↑ Norita Club Page 1, at the Topcon Club.
Sources
- Hagiya Takeshi (萩谷剛). "Norita 66: Yūshutsu o mein toshita 6×6 cm-ban ichiganrefu" (ノリタ66 輸出をメインとした6×6 cm判一眼レフ, Norita 66: A 6×6 SLR mainly for export)). Chapter 4 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.18, October 1991. No ISBN number. Sengo chūhan kamera saihakken / Besuto-hansai 3×4cm-han no miryoku (戦後中判カメラ再発見 / ベスト半截3×4cm判の魅力, special issue on postwar cameras and on 3×4cm cameras).
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
