In April 1948, Fuketa moved from the design department to the camera assembly shop as the Production Manager and Supervisor of camera production overseeing the creation of the first Nikon cameras. Although Fuketa’s main priority was the new 35mm rangefinder camera, he also worked on a 6×6 prototype and an X-Ray project. Fuketa was coordinator of the design committee, which consisted of only 3-4 people. This was a promise Fuketa continued to keep up until his death in February 2001.ĭevelopment of what would become the Nikon rangefinder began less than a year after the war ended in April 1946. Robert was amazed at how much knowledge Fuketa retained, and on the occasion he was stumped, Fuketa would do some research and promise to get back with his answers.
In June 1991 and once again in February 1996, Robert had a chance to meet Masahiko Fuketa in person and pick his brain about Nippon Kogaku’s history. The history of Nippon Kogaku is massive, and I could never begin to scratch the surface of the whole story in a simple blog post, so I will share with you a very abbreviated version of our last two discussions and the images he gave me. Robert’s book has 528 pages and only covers the rangefinders and is something I highly recommend to any collector, whether they have an interest in Nikon or not. Robert was gracious enough to share with me several high quality color and black and white photos that he and other members of the Nikon Historical Society have taken over the years, most of which have never been posted online. Robert has continued to research Nippon Kogaku’s history in the 13 years since that book was published, so some of what he shared with me has not appeared in his book. Much of the information in this article can be found in Robert’s book, “The Complete Nikon Rangefinder System” which was published in 2007. Image used with permission and copyright, Thierry Ravassod. From Masahiko Fuketa to Shigetada Fukuoka, Robert has learned directly from the people who were there in the company’s earliest days after World War II when they became a civilian company, and one that produced cameras. Robert shared with me a great deal of knowledge he has learned first hand over the years in his visits to Nikon and JCII headquarters and in various conversations he’s had with a number of important people working for Nippon Kogaku at the time. The last two times I visited Robert, we discussed Nikon prototypes. Image used with permission, Kenneth Wong. These Nikon prototypes are housed in a storage room at the Nikon Museum. If you’d like to know more, I recommend reading parts 2 and 3 as they cover a tremendous amount about Nippon Kogaku, from before, during, and shortly after the war.
Robert Rotoloni, author, Nikon historian, and president of the Nikon Historical Society.
#Nikon s2 rangefinder 5cm f1.4 series
This is the fourth in a series of posts based on personal conversations I’ve had with Mr.
0 kommentar(er)
