Sanei: Samoca MR

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Sanei Sangyō K.K. (三栄産業㈱) was a Japanese camera maker. It made cameras under the Samoca brand from 1952. It was renamed to Samoca Camera K.K. (サモかカメラ㈱, Samoca Camera Co., Ltd.) in 1955. Samoca cameras and accessories were distributed by Hattori Tokei-ten at least until 1956. The company was perhaps renamed Sanei Sangyō again in 1958, and Samoca cameras are known at least until 1962. The logo of the company consisted of AAA inside a triangle; the three "A" are certainly inspired by the company name "Sanei", which can be phonetically understood as "three A" in Japanese. The Samoca MR was one of the late camera models of Samoca, introduced in 1961. It is a rangefinder camera for 35mm film, mainly constructed of metal parts. The lens is a Samocar 1:2.8 f=45mm. The flash synchronized leaf shutter had speeds from 1 to 1/300 sec. plus B. The optical viewfinder is combined with a superimposed coupled rangefinder. The camera has settings for up to 200 ASA film and apertures of 2.8 to 22. It also has a cold shoe, single action frame advance lever, screw in cable shutter release in the shutter button, frame counter in the bottom of the camera, rewind release button, rewind fold down crank handle, focus capability from 3 feet to infinity, and a ¼” 20 thread tripod mount.