Japanese 35mm SLR Brands

Being the sad old git that I am, the other day I sat down and made a list of all the Japanese 35mm SLR brands I could think of - I counted 20 (why Japanese? Well, why not?)

 

Nikon Canon Minolta Pentax Olympus (the big 5)

 

Ricoh

 

Fujica & Konica Chinon & Cosina Yashica & Mamiya (these 6 are paired together in my mind for some reason)

 

Miranda Topcon Petri Aires Kowa

 

Sigma

 

Soligor Vivitar (if these are considered to be makers rather than brand names)

 

Any that I've forgotten? Or any comments?

Not sure if these would qualify but I remember seeing ads for GAF SLRs in the 1970's and an Argus SLR in a 1965 ad from Bass Camera. I suspect the GAF might have been made by Cosina. The Contax RTS and later models were made in Japan by Yashica (Kyocera).

Yashima (Osanon 750; rare)

 

If you include house brands, there were European labels such as Revueflex and Porst (rebranded Chinon/Cosina cameras), plus Alpa Si2000, Si3000

 

USA store brands such as Quantaray (Cima Kogaku?), Focal (Petri), Sears (Ricoh, Mamiya), Wards (Konica), etc.

Edited May 20, 2019 by m42dave

You could actually make a little rhyming song to remember all these brands, like memorizing all 50 states. That would be sad. :p Edited May 20, 2019 by m42dave

Kyocera & Contax

Zunow

Sears branded K-mount, M42 and p&s cameras?

Maybe stretching, but weren't some Canonflexes branded Bell and Howell?

Bell & Howell was the U.S. importer of Canon products from about 1960 to 1971. Some Canon's were branded "B&H/Canon," but they were Canons. Same as Honeywell importing Pentax's and calling their cameras "Honeywell Pentax," when they were made by Asahi.

Thanks for the replies, that's interesting. To be honest, I was thinking more in terms of manufacturers, and using the word brands in the title has open up something of a can of worms, in terms of the many house names and branding quirks. For example I've got a nice Nikkorex F which was actually made by Mamiya. Plenty of different makes in the UK were sold by Dixons under their Prinz and Prinzflex marques. So it goes.

Also the Altair, by Arae, though only as a prototype which nobody can now find, and the Firstflex 35, by Tokiwa Seiki.

"35mm film" , also includes a rather large number of half-frame SLR cameras -- many so-called "bridge" cameras like the Yashica Samurai:

Or the Mirai (the first version was an SLR):

Makinon (Makina Optical), the third party lens maker, had a couple of K-mount SLRs I remember seeing listed in the 80s (though I don't recall seeing them in the shops). The Makinon Mk-V is a conventional SLR, similar to Cosina models of the time and quite possibly built by them.

 

Makina Optical - Camera-wiki.org - The free camera encyclopedia

 

The Makinon Mk-III is a bit of an oddity, and there's very little information on it online. Unusually for a manual focus SLR, it has a built-in flash:

 

https://photoqueen.gr/image/cache/data/IMG1986-500x500.jpeg

 

Here it is with a 'Porsche' badge:

 

I Shoot Film

 

It looks a bit like the Fujica ST-F (later copied as the Greatwall PF-1). However, the ST-F is a fixed lens camera.