Tenar Six

This is a work in progress.

The Tenar Six (テナーシックス) is a Japanese 6×6 folder announced by Bikōdō Seisakusho from 1951 to 1953.

Drawing and original description

The Tenar Six was advertised from June 1951 to March 1953, together with the Superflex TLR. The October 1951 advertisement in Asahi Camera shows the drawing of a very strange camera, and describes its four main features:

1. the diaphragm is shaped as a radiator (?) and is set by a gear above the shutter, and there is a special finder on the left side;
2. there is a fashionable folding optical finder;
3. a device can be attached above the folding finder, coupled to the front element of the lens, and transforming the camera into a TLR; the device is computed to show an image two times smaller than 6×6cm;
4. there is a fashionable body release.

The drawing shows a horizontal folder, with the film advance knob at the top left, as seen by the photographer. There is a small rectangular casing above the shutter, which contains a small brilliant finder on the left; the diaphragm gear announced in the description is not visible. The camera has a mirror box attached to the middle of the top housing, hiding the eye level finder. The viewing hood of this mirror box has a strange shape, and is perhaps hinged on both sides rather than on the front. A small lens protrudes from the mirror box and is coupled via a long and tortuous arm to a large wheel placed on the left of the taking lens. This wheel seems geared to the distance ring around the front element of the taking lens; its diameter is as large as the taking lens itself.

The June, July and September 1952 advertisements in Asahi Camera again show the same drawing, but the description is gone, and the camera is simply announced as the "new model Tenar Six" (新型・テナーシックス).

Bibliography

• 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. Item 610. (See also the advertisements for items 543–4 and 546.)
• 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), 0-935398-16-3 (hard). P.86 (brief mention only, called "Tenor Six" probably by mistake).

The camera is not listed in Sugiyama.