Konishiroku

EvilOne wrote:

Interesting historical lineage. Thank you. It incited me to look a little further. Not looking to steal your thunder.. Just an Old Konica, and Konica Minolta shooter.

Konica-Konishiroku-history The company was founded in 1873, during the first decade of Japan's industrial revolution, by Rokusaburo Sugiura, who suggested that his employer, the Konishiya apothecary in Kojimachi, Tokyo, begin to sell the new cameras and photographic materials that were being imported from Europe and the United States.

Here is a vintage Pearl... Great Grand father of the Konica Minolta 7D.

Thanks again for this thread.

Bill

Well, all the folders are vintage at this point That is a Semi-Pearl, a prewar earlier version of the Pearl series. Japanese camera companies frequently used semi to denote 6x4.5 I'm presuming because it was half frame 6x9.

https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Semi_Pearl

Even that camera started its run in 1938. I don't know what they would have made in 1873, but I'm guessing large format as photography didn't really make it to the masses until turn of the century. Most of these folders were pretty close copies of sucessful German models.

One thing that struck me about this one (and I neglected to mention about the Pearl IV) is that it is unit focussing. That is pretty rare among folders. Most have a fixed lens with only the front element moving to achieve focusing. Front cell focusing as It's called creates abberations. It's puzzling why they did it that way considering they already have bellows. The only guess I can hazard is the for unit focusing cameras, the lens has to be retracted to infinity to close the folder, which is something that is not a concern for front cell focused models.

The Semi-Pearl was still high tech for its day. I've read that most folders cost about a month's salary for their intended audience. At the budget end were box cameras with a single shutter speed and three apertures if you were lucky (no blades just different holes on a wheel).