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Japanese subminiature
on paper-backed roll film and round film (edit)
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20mm film Guzzi | Mycroflex | Top
round film Evarax | Petal | Sakura Petal | Star
unknown Hallow | Lyravit | Tsubasa
cine film see Japanese cine film subminiature
110 film see Japanese 110 film

The Tsubame is a Japanese subminiature camera made in the late 1940s or early 1950s by an unknown company, and only known from an entry in Sugiyama.[1]

Description[]

The Tsubame takes 14×14mm pictures on 17.5mm paper backed rollfilm. It is slightly better than the average Hit-type camera, and has some strange features. It has a waist-level finder only, contained in the middle of the top housing, and no direct vision finder. There is a body release on the right of the viewfinder (as seen by the photographer), an unusual feature on Hit-type models.

The film is advanced by a knob on the left, with numbers engraved at the top, certainly a crude form of exposure counter. It is not known if there is a red window on the back or if the frame spacing relies on these numbers only. The back is probably hinged to the left, and there is a spring-loaded latch on the right. The leatherette covering is clear-coloured and has a decorative pattern.

The lens is a fixed-focus Tsubame Anastigmat 20mm f/4.5, and the aperture is reportedly adjustable from 4.5 to 9. The shutter has B, 100, 50, 25 speeds selected by turning the rim.

Documents[]

No document mentioning the Tsubame has been found, and the only example known so far is pictured in Sugiyama.[2] This book gives the name "Tsubame" (meaning "swallow" in Japanese) but it is unconfirmed: in the picture, no marking is visible except for the lens name.

Various sources describe a "Swallow" subminiature with a waist-level finder only, whose features exactly correspond to the Tsubame.[3] None provides a picture, and they might make a confusion with the English translation provided in Sugiyama for "Tsubame".

Notes[]

Bibliography[]

The Tsubame is not listed in Kokusan kamera no rekishi.

Links[]

In English:

  • Swallow among 17.5mm cameras at Subclub.org, mentioning a version with a waist-level finder only, perhaps corresponding to the Tsubame
  • Swallow at Submin.com, mentioning a version with a waist-level finder only, perhaps corresponding to the Tsubame
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