Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/12/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I believe this lens is mentioned in Hans P Rajner (writing as 'HPR'), LEICA COPIES, the best there is on the cameras and the only resource at present on non-Leitz Japanese lenses; it is also mentioned in the much less worthy 300 LEICA COPIES, though as a 110mm lens and not as an 11cm. This lens should safely accomodate 24mm by 36mm: it was sold with all of the later Minolta LTM cameras and is not terribly rare (though not terribly common, either!) The format is not something Minolta thought up: Nikon also used this. The US, to prevent Japanese 35mm camera imports, made a bizarre regulation which ran along the lines of 'cameras taking pictures on a 24mm by 36mm format and made in countries lying between 125 and 145 degrees East Longitude in the Northern Hemisphere are subject to a ten thousand percent tariff', thus protecting German, English, French, and Italian imports. The Japanese immediately began marketing 24mm by 32mm format cameras, thus evading the punitive tariff. (I made up the ten thousand percent; I believe it was three times the tariff on European camearas.) Once it became obvious that the Japanese were going to monkey with the format to get it regardless of what we did, and in the face of pronounced pressure from GA MacArthur, our Man in the East at that time, we relented. Within a year or two, everyone was back to the 'normal' 24mm by 36mm format. This happened around 1948 or '49. Your cameras date from '51 and '52, by the way. The 'Nippon' format actually became quite popular, as a normal 36-exposure roll yielded forty exposures. But Kodak also fought its use, oestensibly as its Kodachrome processing machines could not accomodate it, though it has been rumoured that the mavens of Big Yaller were concerned over MINIMIZING and not maximizing the number of exposures per roll. The case is not a copy of a Canon or Nikon case: it's a copy of a standard Prewar Zeiss Ikon lens case, and copied as well both before and after the War by Voigtlander and Steinheil. Neat idea to carry a supplementary VF in the top. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!