Camera Industry Helps Japan To Trade Abroad

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28435, 15 November 1957, Page 23

Camera Industry Helps Japan To Trade Abroad

(By RALPH S. WHEELER]

Tokyo, October 4.—The optical industry is very important to Japan. The whole of the factors which go into the manufacture of optical goods, including labour and technical staff, are available within the country. Thus, at this difficult period when international trade gets out of balance and causes governments to apply currency restrictions, all the currency carried by the export of Japanese optical goods is available to finance Japanese imports. Japan wants to buy from the rest of the world but must have foreign currency to do so. That is why the Japanese manufacturers are so keen to find foreign markets for their optical products.

At a camera factory in Tokyo, the products of which are now held in high regard throughout the world, I saw a great industry at work. The camera parts are mass-produced. In one room were four large machines, all designed by the company’s technicians, which are entirely automatic in action. Part of the camera is fixed in a holder and it then traverses several stages, where it is drilled, ground, and polished. It was uncanny to see the model pattern and then watch the drills and other tools reproducing the parts in the course of manufacture. When the finished parts leave the automatic machines they are carefully inspected with precision apparatus. Everything

has to be accurate to a high degree.

In the next section, the anodising department, parts are either blackened or plated with shining chrome. In the lens-grind-ing section, there were numbers of machines grinding, shaping, and polishing lenses, many of which are of five or more parts, for the de luxe models. After testing, all the parts are handled by skilled technicians, many of them young women; and as we proceeded along the assembly line I saw the cameras come into being. Each camera consists of no less than 800 separate parts. In the showroom, which is also a camera musuem, I was shown the generations of completed cameras that have been designed in the factory since production first commenced. There were also highly technical medical and microscopic cameras the functioning of which, although explained to me by Mr Ohtake, were far beyond my non-technical grasp. One huge telescopic lerfs was simply amazing. It was just like a small cannon. The camera is attached to it and is but a small part of the optical ensemble; the magnification was terrific. I was not informed of the price, but I should think such a telescopic extra for a camera would be decidedly expensive. By this time my mind was in a scientific maze. Next was the department where the cine cameras are assembled. The multitude of small and moderatesized pieces that go to make an eight-millimetre cine camera is just amazing, and what is more amazing is the simplicity with which it can be operated. For super-critical work, close-ups. titling, and telephoto lens use. where extra sharp focusing is essential, the user may focus through the lens on a special circular ground-glass screen built into the camera. But time was pressing. I had already been in the factory most of the morning, and about noon I said farewell to kindly Mr Ohtake, and motored back to Tokyo and my hotel. My visit had in every way been an optical education. At the present time this camera company employs 1000 workers in its 26.000 square feet of factories. Most of its products are for export.