Takane

Takane Kōgaku (高嶺光学, Takane Optical), was from 1953 to 1958 the maker of several folding roll-film cameras, most models of which had an integrated range/viewfinder and unit focusing and were sold as the Mine Six. The final model, the Super 66, was remarkable as the first Japanese folder to have a coupled exposure meter.

The manufacturer that became Takane was started by Mr Izawa (井沢広治) in 1952, in suburban Takasaki (north from Tokyo), and more precisely in the garden of his father, a farmer. (The resulting company would remain in the Takasaki area until its demise.) Izawa's factory produced components for other companies, among which was Mihama Seikō (三浜精工; very soon to be Suruga Seiki, 駿河精機), for whose Mihama Six it produced the body.

In 1953, Izawa determined to make his own camera. He obtained a loan from Daidō bank (now the Bank of Gunma), created a company Daidō Seikō (大同精工, Daidō precision engineering) and, using the body first designed for a Mihama, he produced two folding viewfinder cameras, the Daido Six and Semi.

[More coming soon.]

Models

• Daido Six
• Daido Semi
• Sisley 55
• Mine Six
• Mine Six IIF
• Mine Six IIFb
• Mine Six IIIS/IIISB
• Mine Six Super 66

Source / further reading

• Hagiya Takeshi (萩谷剛). "Gunma-ken Takasaki-shi no kameramēkā" (群馬県高崎市のカメラメーカー, A camera-maker in Takasaki, Gunma). Chapter 7 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 In Japanese only. First published in issue 27 (December 1993) of Kamera rebyū: Kurashikku kamera senka (カメラレビュー・クラシックカメラ専科), this history of Takane is based on Hagiya's interviews with four people who had been key figures in the company.