Rokuoh-sha Konishiroku (KONICA) Type 89 gun camera
How cool is this Konica camera? Konica can trace its history back to 1873 (pre-dating Kodak in the photography business) when pharmacist Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic materials at his store in Konishiya Rokubē, the biggest pharmacy trader in Tokyo at that time. In 1878, Rokusaburō succeeded to his family and renamed Rokuemon VI (Rokudaime Rokuemon). He gave the original shop to his younger brother and launched a new shop, Konishi Honten (Konishi Main Shop) in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. In 1882, Konishi launched a project to produce photography related materials in Japan: those products were imported at that time. In 1902, Konishi began to sell the "Cherry Portable Camera" (チェリー手提用暗函), the first Japanese produced end-user oriented camera. New products were released respectively, and Konishi Main Shop became the leading camera company in Japan. In 1921, Konishi was succeeded by his eldest son, With this succesion came a name change as Konishi Honten was turned into Konishiroku Honten. The name Konishiroku was taken from the abbreviation of their names, Konishi Rokuemon.Konishiroku released their "Konica I" type camera in 1948, after which they would name their own company in 1987. The first aerial camera used by the Japanese air forces in some quantity was the Nedinsco FK I. (Nedinsco was a Dutch branch of Carl Zeiss, and "FK" perhaps means Fliegerkamera.) It was adopted by the Japanese Army as the 25cm Aerial Camera named after its 25cm focal length. It was also used by the Navy as the Handheld Aerial Camera 25cm.
The Nedinsco camera was later produced in Japan by Rokuoh-sha, perhaps after an official license was bought or as an unauthorised copy. Cameras made in the 1930s have a Hexar Ser.1 25cm f/4.5 lens. They were mostly retired from use when the Pacific War broke out. Not your average everyday Konica...
Navy Type 89 Machine-gun Camera
The Type 89 Moving-image Machine-gun Camera was an all new model by Rokuoh-sha. It is said that four experimental cameras were made in 1929. (In the name, "Type 89" stands for year 2589 in the Japanese mythological calendar, i.e. 1929.) That early version perhaps had imported lenses. The improved Type 89 Moving-image Machine-gun Camera Kai followed in 1931 with Hexar lenses.[ The final version was the Kai 2), serial produced from 1933 to about 1944. The camera was used by the Navy, as indicated by the anchor usually stamped on the nameplate. The Type 89 was an effective training tool for aircraft gunners, who would fire the gun camera at various ground based, or airborne targets. The resulting shots would later be developed and analysed in order to determine the gunner’s accuracy. Once the gunners, using the machine gun cameras, achieved sufficient proficiency with the machine gun camera, they would then graduate to actual machine guns.
You might be wondering about that yellow-colored, transparent dome you see stop the barrel of the “gun. Well, during target practice, that space would be occupied by a stop-watch which was rigged to begin ticking away as soon as the trigger was depressed, and stop once the gunner ceased “firing.” Through the use of a prism, the face of the stop-watch would also appear on the images that the machine gun camera captured. Because of this, the length of time that the gunner’s bursts lasted could be accurately recorded, and the gunner could then receive instruction on how to more efficiently control his rate of fire.The Type 89 snaps 18x24mm images, using35mm film, and is capable of shooting at 10 frames per second – making it a sort of hybrid between a still camera and movie camera. It captures images as soon as the trigger is pulled, and doesn’t stop until it’s released or the film runs out.
The camera takes 18×24mm pictures on 35mm cine film loaded in 2.5m strips. It is driven by a spring motor, and can take sequences at 10 frames per second.[54] The taking lens is a Hexar Ser.1 7.5cm f/4.5, and the firing time is recorded via a Hexar Ser.1 4cm f/4.5 auxiliary lens aimed at a stop watch dial. The optical sight, handgrip and attachment lugs are removable, and minor variations may exist.
