Olympus Chrome Six

The Olympus Chrome Six is a series of folding cameras made by Takachiho and later Olympus from 1948 to 1956, for 6×4.5 or 6×6 exposures on 120 film.

In 1948, Olympus launched the Chrome Six I, an updated version of the Olympus Six of 1940[1] and its first postwar release of a folding camera for 120 film. The cameras were produced at the Suwa Plant in Nagano Prefecture. They were packaged and shipped on the same day to camera stores in Tokyo.[1]

In 1951 Olympus launched the Olympus Chrome Six IIIA, a successor to the Olympus Chrome Six I.[1] The camera had a film tensioner which held the film flat against the pressure plate,[2] the first implementation of this feature.[1] The Olympus Chrome Six RIIA was launched four years later in 1955. It had a high-precision rangefinder (not coupled with the lens), and was the most advanced camera of the series.[1]

Notes

1. Olympus Camera History, accessed 17 May 2008
2. Sōichirō Matsuzaki (松崎惣一郎, Matsuzaki Sōichirō), "Orinpasu kamera no subete 2: supuringu kamera <sengo-hen>" (オリンパスカメラのすべて2・スプリングカメラ戦後編, "All of Olympus cameras 2: folding cameras [postwar]"), Kamera Rebyū: Kurashikku Kamera Senka (カメラレビュー クラシックカメラ専科) / Camera Review: All about Historical Cameras no. 20, 25 March 1992, pp.16–8 (in Japanese); Sōichirō Matsuzaki, "'Orinpasu kurōmu shikkusu' to sono koto domo" (「オリンパスクロームシックス」とその周辺のことども, "About the 'Olympus Chrome Six'"), Kamera Rebyū: Kurashikku Kamera Senka (カメラレビュー クラシックカメラ専科) / Camera Review: All about Historical Cameras 76, June 2005 (ISBN 4-257-13078-4), Kurashikku kamera katachi to kinō 'supuringu kamera hen' (クラシックカメラ形と機能「スプリングカメラ編」, special issue on spring cameras), pp.28–31 (in Japanese).