by Karen Nakamura
When I saw this camera in an antique store in Saint Paul (MN), I immediately knew it was unusual. After World War II, Japanese camera makers were not immediately allowed to make medium format roll-film cameras, only 35mm because of shortages of film stock. When medium-format production finally resumed, they were all TLRs. Thus, any Japanese folding-type medium format camera is unusual because it must be pre-War when export numbers were low.
A quick look in McKeowns confirmed my hunch. The Riken Adler is a camera series made by Riken Kogaku (later Ricoh) in 1938. Riken had started out as a maker of sensitized photopapers, later coming out with their own series of cameras. They only had one line of folders, the Adlers, but quite a few TLRs and 35mm cameras in the post-War period.
The Adler is a copy of the German Baldax camera. Although McKeowns only mentions two body types, there are actually at least four according to Ricoh's home page: A/B, IV, III, and CII. The main changes between the A/B and C appear to be in the folding strut structure; a German-sounding shutter (Heumann-Heilemann Rulex); the shutter changed from an everset to set-and-release type; and a square (non-folding) finder. I'm not sure if my C and the CII on the Ricoh site are actually one and the same. They have same specs.
The Adler C is well made for the period. The body is mostly stamped metal with few castings. The shutter is made by "Peerless" and is a leaf-shutter design from 1/5 to 1/200 sec. Not the equal of the best Compur shutters by far.
I'm not sure what the "Solar 7.5cm f/3.5" lens is composed of. The lenses do not appear coated, but they are remarkably clean and clear given the age of the camera. The design of the camera as a whole is well thought out. The case in particular is very nice.
Japan was allies with Germany by the late 1930s and there was pressure on manufacturers to use German-sounding names in their cameras, rather than English sounding ones. Thus, Riken's camera was called the "Adler" which means "eagle."
Camera
Name |
Adler C | |
|---|---|---|
Manufacturer |
Riken Kogaku | |
Place
of Manufacture |
Japan |
|
Date
of Manufacture |
1938~ | |
Focusing
System |
Scale focusing |
|
Lens |
Solar
7.5cm f/3.5 3 elements
in 3 groups |
|
Shutter |
Peerless leaf shutter: 1/5 sec. - 1/200 sec + T + B |
|
Metering
System |
n/a |
|
Apertures |
f/3.5-f/25 (x stop steps) |
|
Flash |
none |
|
Film
type / speeds |
Type
120 (medium format) |
|
Battery
type |
n/a | |
Dimensions
and weight |
102
W x 110 H x 95 D mm |
|
Retail
price |
A: ¥90 |
|
Ricoh is a very interesting company. They first started in 1927 as the Rikagaku Kogyou Kabushigaisha (The Physics and Chemistry Initiative Corporation). They came out with a plastic camera, the Olympic in 1934, which used 127 roll film. In 1936, they established as the Riken Kankoushi Kabushikigaisha (Riken Photopaper Company) and the Ricohflex B. They started using the Ricoh name for cameras in '38, when they came out with the Adler. They continued making a whole variety starting with rollfilm cameras, to a line of rangefinders, TLRs, and then finally SLRs. Their last SLR was the XR-10P in 1995. They continue to produce point-and-shoots, including the very nice GR1V (2001).
On the Net |
[Return to Photoethnography.com]