Re: Buying Konica 120

[eml@xxxxxxxxx]

> 
> > I was reading an old (1978) IR book, and in it they refer to this 
> > film as 'the Japanese Sakura Infrared 750', at that time not being 
> > imported to Europe. Perhaps this is the old name of Konica, but it 
> > could also indicate a specific subsidiary plant. 
> >  
> >  
> >  
> > -- 
> > Bye, 
> >  
> > Willem-Jan Markerink 
>  
> Actually I think it's the other way 'round: Konica is the subsidiary 
> plant of SakuraColor. Konica is kind of the brand name that Sakura Color 
> films are marketed under in western countries. Sakura is actually the 
> oldest Japanese film company. It would be interesting to see a company 
> history of Sakura. 
>  
> Russ Rosener 

Actually, it is Sakura Film(or was), and it is(was) a product of 

    Konishiroku Photo Industry Co., Ltd.
    Tokyo, Japan

Sakura was its brand name for its products for many years, but here
in the US, it has always been labelled Konica (as were their cameras)
unless it was being sold as a store brand or an unofficial import.
I used a good number of rolls of Sakura Film (brand name) film.
Interestingly, it was called Konicacolor or Konipan.  This was back in the 
late '60's, and I remember that the color film was quite nice, 
but the B&W film was really excellent, the one time I ever found any.

There's a good writeup on it in an old 1959'ish  Japanese Ministry
of Trade publication that I have, called "Photographic Sensitized 
Materials of Japan".  And yes, Konika IR750 is there, as "Sakura
Infra-red 750 'mu'(greek char.) in 135 1nd 120 sizes, as well as
a Sakura Infra-Red glass plate!  

But you really aren't an old hand with japanese film unless you have 
bought Fujicolor or Fujichrome with prepaid envelopes and sent the
film to (on the east coast) a post office box in Philadelphia, PA
for processing.  The film (1960-ish) used to be airfreighted  once
or twice a week to Japan for processing!  How they made money on
that proposition is anyone's guess.

Oriental Photo, whose papers we know, produced color rollfilm and
135, and B&W sheetfilm back then, as well as sheetfilm.

Enough trivia.  Enough spurious bandwidth!

Regards,
Ed Lukacs
- -- 
    _/_/_/_/ _/_/    _/ _/   | Edward M. Lukacs 
   _/       _/ _/ _/_/ _/    | eml@xxxxxxxxx 
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 _/       _/      _/ _/      | Washington, DC 20007
_/_/_/_/ _/      _/ _/_/_/_/ | Telephone: 202-338-1489

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End of Infrared-Digest V0 #516
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