Okaya

Okaya Kōgaku Kikai K.K. (岡谷光学機械㈱, meaning Okaya Optical Works Company, Ltd.) was a Japanese maker of leaf-shutter 35mm cameras (as well as "Vista" brand binoculars) in the 1950s. Okaya was based in Nagano. Okaya's cameras were distributed within Japan by Hattori Tokei-ten. Their brand name was Lord — a name that was probably owned by Hattori and was already used in 1937–8 by Tōkyō Kōgaku.

Lord cameras have Okaya Highkor lenses. The earliest Lord 35 is a viewfinder camera; all subsequent Lord cameras have rangefinders. The last models have exposure meters.

Okaya's technical innovations (at least for Japanese cameras) included a rewind button that only needed to be depressed at the start rather than all the way through the film (Lord 35, 1953), a folding rewind crank (Lord 35IVB, 1955), a baseplate port for a mechanical winder (Lord SE, 1958) and photocells around the front of the lens and thus under any filter (Lord Martian, 1960).

(Okaya should not be confused with Okada.)

Models

• Lord IIA
• Lord IVA
• Lord IVB
• Lord 35
• Black Lord 35
• Lord 4D
• Lord 5D
• Lord SE
• Lord SL
• Lord Martian

Sources and 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. Items 1043–5, 1822–8.
• The Japanese Historical Camera. 2nd ed. Tokyo: JCII Camera Museum, 2004.

Links

In Japanese:

• Lord 35, Lord 35IVB, and Lord Martian in the Camera database of the Center of the History of Japanese Industrial Technology
• On lens numbering; at the foot of a long page at Hibimōkoto
• Lord IVB and Lord 35a at Kan's Room

In French/English:

• Cameras at www.collection-appareils.fr