Tokyo Kogaku Primo-Jr
Released in 1958, the Tōkyō Kōgaku Primo-Jr was built during the height of the brief 4x4 TLR era. Made by Tōkyō Kōgaku, who also made Topcon, the Primo-Jr was released only a year after the Rolleiflex Grey Baby and beat the Yashica-44 to market by a small margin. The Primo-Jr is fitted with a Topcor 60mm f2.8 lens set in a Seikosha-MXL shutter with speeds from 1s to 1/500 (plus Bulb). A later version of the Primo-Jr was fitted with a Seikosha-SVL shutter with only minor other changes. The camera features Automat-style winding with an automatic frame counter (though the frame counter needs to be manually set at the start of the film). Exposure is set via arms to either side of the taking lens and exposure is coupled by default to EV units - though shutter and aperture can be adjusted individually by holding one of the arms in place while the other is adjusted. The Primo-Jr has a left-handed focus knob and can focus down to 2.2ft (0.65m). Being a 4x4 TLR, the camera uses 127 film to create twelve 4x4cm images per roll.
Interestingly enough, the camera was sold in the US under the Sawyer's brand name and badged the Sawyer's Mark IV for the Portland, Oregon-based company. Other versions of the Primo-Jr include a gray edition and a version with a built-in meter.
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