Sources: Japanese language

Kokusan kamera no rekishi

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.

This informative book is well described by its title. It is a large hardback in a slipcase, priced at ¥13,000 and now (2006) out of print. It is edited by a team of twenty (listed and described on the very last page), headed by Sakai Shūichi (酒井修一).

Between well-illustrated introductory material and informative appendices and an index, the main content of the book is divided into two. The bulkier of these runs from p. 57 to p. 332. This in turn is divided by decade: 1935–"45" (until the end of the war), 1945–55, and 1956–65. Within each of these decades, reduced-size reproductions of advertisements are presented of cameras ordered by their names. This order is the conventional Japanese one (a, i u, e, o; ka, ki, ku, ke, ko; . . . wa; n.). The second large section runs from p. 333 to p. 419; in compact type (three columns of text on each page), the book briefly describes 1,851 cameras and the incidence of publicity for them in Japanese photo magazines. Photographs are provided here for cameras made only for export and some other obscure models for which no advertisements could be found. (For a very few cameras, there is no advertisement or photograph.) For the typical item, however, the number is also that of one or more advertisements in the preceding section.

Aside from some slogans and decorative phrases within the advertisements themselves, the entire content of this book is in Japanese. There is no romanized index in which readers might look up, say, "Nikon F"; instead, they must look up ニコンF. The book therefore might bemuse and even fascinate somebody who cannot read Japanese, but such a person wanting to look up something within it would probably soon give up in frustration.

The History of the Japanese Camera

Lewis, Gordon, ed. The History of the Japanese Camera. Rochester, N.Y.: George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography & Film, 1991. ISBN 0-935398-17-1 (paper), ISBN 0-935398-16-3 (hard).