The Japanese Konishiroku company made a 6×6cm SLR prototype before the early 1950s. The camera is only known from an article by Sakurai Minoru (桜井実) in the September 1951 issue of Photo Art.[1] No picture is provided, and the original text is as follows:
- シックス判（一眼レフの部）
- 一流メーカーで国産一眼レフのないのは真に淋しい限りです。一度小西六で試作されましたが、本機はヘキサー1:2.8 f=80ミリ、シャッターフォーカルT・B・1～1000、シンクロ、セルフ、自動絞り付という高性能なもので、その製造中止は理由の如何を問わず真に残念千万で、何んとかならぬものでしょうか？
The text describes the camera as having a Hexar 80/2.8 with auto diaphragm, a focal-plane shutter (B, 1–1000), flash synchronization and a self-timer. The last sentence says that "the fact that production was abandoned is really a pity, regardless of the circumstances; isn't there something that can be done?" The phrasing seems to imply that the camera was abandoned a few years earlier, maybe even during World War II — in another section of the same article, the author similarly regrets the abandon of the 1937 Olympus Standard.[2]
No other detail is known, and no photograph of the camera has been found so far.
Notes[]
Bibliography[]
- Sakurai Minoru (桜井實). "Kōkyū kokusan kamera no jōzu na erabikata" (高級国産カメラの上手な選び方, How to choose a high-end Japanese camera). In Photo Art no.27, September 1951. Pp.89–93.
The Konishiroku 6×6 SLR is not in Kokusan kamera no rekishi or Sugiyama.