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The
Graflex Norita 66 was made by Norita Kogaku in Japan for
Graflex. This is a wonderful 6cm x 6cm SLR (single lens
reflex) with a very fast 80mm f2.0 standard lens. This lens
has virtually no depth of field when it's wide open which
makes it great for soft-focus shots where the focus quickly
goes out as you move away from the point-of-focus.
You
might notice that the Norita 66 looks like a 35mm SLR. While
it's considerably larger than a Nikon F or F2 it is basically
the same design - with interchangeable lenses and
finders.
Like any good SLR the Norita 66 has the
advantage of both through-the-lens focussing and
interchangeable lenses. The ease of use and versatility of
this basic SLR camera design is the reason that SLRs (mostly
35mm SLRs) became so popular in the 1960s and 1970s and wiped
out the market for many of the more difficult to use and less
versatile cameras of the 1950's - including most of the
wonderful old folding cameras featured on the other pages of
this site.
Like the Nikon F2 the Norita 66 has an
optional waist-level finder and also an optional metered
pentaprism (the one shown here is without a meter). Lenses
made for it include a 40mm, 55mm, 70mm , 80mm, 160mm, 240mm
and 400mm. The 70mm has an internal shutter for flash sync up
to 1/500th. For the other lenses the flash sync speed is
1/30th of a second due to the camera's large focal plane
shutter.
The Norita 66 can shoot 120 film or 220 film
(220 is 120 without the paper backing so the rolls are twice
as long). |
