Yamasaki
Yamasaki Kōgaku Kenkyūsho (山崎光学研究所, meaning Yamasaki Optical Laboratory) is a Japanese lens maker.
See also the company Yamasaki Seiki Seisakusho which made the Bonny cameras in the first half of the 1940s and is probably unrelated.
History
The company was founded in 1924 by Mr Yamasaki (山崎光七), a former employee of Asanuma Shōkai.[1] It made efforts to produce a camera lens from the beginning, and it released its first commercially available lens in 1931.[2] Yamasaki has used the name "Congo" (コンゴー, Kongō) for its lenses since that date. This comes from the Japanese battleship Kongō (金剛, usually spelled "Kongo" in English contexts), built in Britain as a battle cruiser in 1911 and sunk in 1944. (The ship was itself named after the 1112m-high Mt Kongō (金剛山, Kongō-san) on the Ōsaka/Nara border.)[3]
The company became K.K. Yamasaki Kōgaku Kenkyūsho (㈱山崎光学研究所, Yamasaki Optical Co., Ltd.) in 1955.[4] It is based in Hino-shi, suburban Tokyo (山崎光学研究所) since 1972.[5] It has concentrated on lenses for large-format cameras.
Yamasaki seems to buck stereotypes about Japanese companies. It caters for a niche market, advertises little, and sells directly via mail and its website; the FAQ in its website answers just three questions, of which the first is of why the prices are so low.[6]
Cameras fitted with Congo lenses
Notes
- ↑ Yamasaki history page.
- ↑ Yamasaki history page.
- ↑ Niimi, p. 102.
- ↑ Yamasaki history page.
- ↑ Yamasaki history page.
- ↑ Yamasaki Optical FAQ.
Sources / Further reading
- Niimi Kahee (新見嘉兵衛). Kamera-mei no gogen sanpo (カメラ名の語源散歩, Strolls in the etymology of camera names). 2nd ed. Tokyo: Shashin Kōgyō Shuppansha, 2002. ISBN 4-87956-060-X
Links
In English:
In Japanese:
