Tominon e-36 lenses

I've always assumed that B&H was retail only, with discounts 'to the trade' for local/traveling pro photographers. They take trades and buy/sell gear, and have a service group for events and seminars, but unless they have a separate company, I don't think I've ever seen them mentioned as a distributor or maker of anything... or even having their own branding of anything beyond accessories. They started in the 70's as a photo store and eventually expanded to other creative media product types, and are still one of the few companies that send out bound paper catalogs.

Osawa was a distributor in the traditional sense - Mamiya was one of their main brands - and they also had a line of Osawa branded lenses, like Vivitar did, as a rebranding of other makes, but also manufactured some of their own lenses in-house. I think I read an article long ago that they had either invested as a partner in Mamiya, or had some other financial interest in the company, but I don't remember the specifics. Unlike Vivitar and their Series 1 premium offerings, I think Osawa's were middle-tier and not really sought after for performance. How do the Osawa branded enlarging lenses do for IQ compared to the rest?

Here's the background:

Back in the 1960's, the Bell & Howell:Mamiya Company ("BHMC") was owned jointly by Bell & Howell Co. (in the USA) and J. Osawa & Co (in Japan).

These two companies were distributors/marketers of photo gear -- just like Ponder & Best (Vivitar), Honeywell (Pentax), Allied Impex (Soligor), EPOI (Nikon), and Berkey (Rodenstock).

In the 1970’s, Mamiya/Sekor cameras and lenses were marketed by the then-named Ponder & Best. (Sekor is an “abbreviation” of the Setagaya Optical Company which made the lenses for the Mamiya/Sekor cameras and was dropped from the name when the two companies merged.) After P&B changed their name to Vivitar -- and only sold products labeled “Vivitar” -- Osawa was chosen to be the exclusive worldwide distributor of the then-called "Mamiya" cameras and lenses.

But just like Ponder & Best and Vivitar, and other distributors, Osawa did not just market Mamiya cameras and lenses. Among the other things they did were marketing the many lenses made by Setagaya -- AKA Sekor -- (as well as other optical companies) for Mamiya cameras -- but also for other camera companies (just like Vivitar and Soligor did). Some of these lenses were labeled “Osawa” which has led many to mistakenly believe that Osawa was an optical manufacturer – just like many mistakenly believe that Vivitar and Soligor are lens manufacturers.

But In 1979, Bell & Howell decided to withdraw from the consumer photography business. It then transferred its interest in BHMC to J. Osawa & Co.

Osawa marketed lenses under the name “Osawa” – made by various optical companies, such as Tokina. They also marketed cameras such as Mamiya. In 1984, plans for the expansion of Mamiya's popular Z-series of 35mm cameras were halted when Mamiya's main international distributor, Osawa (formerly BHMC) declared bankruptcy. It was the largest financial failure in Japanese history -- until the recent TAKATA bankruptcy -- and led to Mamiya declaring bankruptcy, and then restructuring.

Allied Impex marketed lenses under various names, typically “Soligor” – made by various optical companies, most notably, Tokina. They also marketed cameras such as Miranda and Soligor.

Mamiya's lenses were made by Setagaya -- much like Tomioka and Yashica -- but Setagaya made lenses for other companies as well, much like Tomioka did for Polaroid, etc.

Setagaya made lenses for Miranda as well, and lots were labeled as SOLIGOR and are seen on Miranda as well as Mamiya cameras. But Soligor lenses were made by other optical companies too -- complicating matters. Soligor C/D lenses are top notch -- and made by different companies (just like the Vivitar Series 1 lenses). I have a great Soligor 650mm f8.5 C/D CAT made by Tokina. Soligor used a numbering system on their serial numbers to indicate the manufacturer.

I can't say for sure, but I assume Setagaya made the Mamiya ENLAHEADs -- there were five versions, as I recall.

There were two enlarging lenses sold under the Soligor name, but they were also sold under the AICO, Perfex, Samigon, Pritz, Coligar, and Vivitar labels. Did Setagaya made them? I would not be surprised.

Perhaps someone has tried to untangle the plate-of-Japanese-lenses, but I doubt it.

So... while I'm more than a year late (sorry for that!), I can finally give you an update on the Fujinon-EFC Adapters:

Here's my plan for those

and this is how they look on the lens:





As you can see this lens has two of those adapter rings on it, because the genius I am, I managed to get them stuck that way almost immediately... 😅

Regardless, it still works fine and I can mount these lenses in both directions now onto my lensboard, while also having the option of adding 
a.) a tube lens for macro work
b.) a lens hood 

via the additional 58x0.75 mm thread on each side.

Hello simplejoy and welcome back!

Some exceptional work has evidently been going on during the last year; pity I no longer use Fuji's standard digital format as that adapter looks very promising. Your article on Noritsu made very interesting reading; I'm not sure I can add much yet as it's all new to me but I'll have a root around...