The Toyoca 35-S is a simple 35mm viewfinder-only camera produced by the Japanese company, Tougodo Optical Company, in the mid 1950s. The camera typically dons a 4.5cm f/3.5 Tri-Lausar lens, a three element lens that has mediocre reviews. The lens is mounted in an equally simple shutter that generally features speeds of 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and 1/300 of a second.
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Toyoca 35-S
We recently paid a visit to the home of one of our good friends, film photographer Colton Allen. As you would expect of a visit to any avid film photographer, he had a lovely collection of cameras on display, including two different Toyoca cameras: this 35-S and a Toyocaflex. We have never had the chance to feature a Toyoca 35-S, so we made use of the opportunity to get a portrait of it on Colton's dining room table.
While the camera itself is a bit unremarkable, the company that produced it, Tougodo, has a fascinating history. Founded in the 1930s by three brothers-in-law, they named the company after Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, a hero of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. The company's most interesting product is probably their "It" camera. These were inexpensive box cameras that used a process called "No-Need-Darkroom," where the sheets of film were enclosed in paper sheaths. These sheaths were inserted into the camera, pulled back, exposure made, and then the sheath was reinserted. It sounds similar to the later Quick and Readyloads, made popular by Fuji and Kodak. The No-Need-Darkroom film really stands out from the rest when it comes to processing the film. True to the name, you developed the film in full daylight by immersing the film in a red-tinted developer, where you pulled back the sheath for processing, before moving it to a fixer, and finally a lengthy wash. The developer had a desensitizing agent, along with the red tint, that prevented the film from being further exposed by light while developing. There are so many stories of Japanese photographers working on street corners, making portraits and developing them right there.
The Toyoca 35-S came much later in the company's history - somewhere in the 1950s. It is a viewfinder-only camera featuring a 4.5cm f/3.5 Tri-Lausar lens. The camera was commonly exported and can be found under a couple other names including the Strato/35.