Hot Spot showing Camera History

     The Fujifilm Co., which known as a film and camera maker, set up a “Photo History Museum” in the company’s showroom of Roppongi, Tokyo.  I happened to visit this museum in the last summer. The museum looks relatively small, but it provides an unique  spot with talking about the camera history as well as showing series of Fujifilm’s flagship cameras, particularly on the Fujica models. The museum displays various pictures and photos indicating global development of the photograph technology. It also provides photo exhibition corner named “Fujifilm Fort Salon” for the photo contest.
This article is an impression of my visit there.

Refer to : http://fujifilmsquare.jp/guide/museum.html

♣  Exhibition of the Photo History Museum

        The Photo History Museum displays the many historical brand cameras with valuable information on the origins of photo technology and its development. It includes the replica model of “Daguerreotype” camera in the 19th century; the Talbot’s the “Gallo” type camera, and other well-known authentic camera series. It is really enjoyable to see those collections of historic cameras.
    The relic story on the Japan photography in the Meiji era is also enjoyable. The portraits of the “Edo-Meiji” people in the colorful picture book, the “Yokohama Photo Album“ which was taken by the newly visited European photographers in that period besides the exhibition of the photograph tools of them.

♣  Advancement of photosensitive tools

Among the museum collections, the explanation of photosensitive tools is the most unique and valuable ones in the museum. It is showing the process of historic development of photosensitive materials, such as how the photo sensitive method was invented, how it was shifted from the silver plate to the glass plate one (collodion wet method), and from the “wet method” to “dry method” using gelatin, and so on.          Furthermore, the exhibits are explaining, how the “roll film” was born using celluloid materials, why the recent technology was advancing from plastic films to digital IC materials, and other episodes. These film histories are particularly seemed in detail, it is maybe reasoned that the museum is run by the prominent film maker Fuji, which has been leading technology on the photosensitive materials in Japan.

♣  Evolution of the early brand camera and Fujica camera history

        In the meantime, the highlight of museum, more than anything, would be the exhibition of the well-known classic models of camera produced in the America and Europe in the early time. The famous historic cameras, such as Kodak’s and Icon’s spring camera, along with German Leika’s distinctive “Leika-I” model, and other memorial cameras, are exhibited there in rich. The many type of twin-lens reflex cameras that are rarely seen in the Japan are also exhibited there abundantly.

 On the other hand, the various cameras produced by Fujifilm Co. are, of course, fully displayed altogether in the museum. Among them, the “Fujica Six IA” of spring camera, a compact camera “Fujica 35M“, film-lens camera “QuickSnap“, “Fujica 35 Auto M”, video camera of “Fujica Single 8” are the prominent exhibits. The FinePix, which has symbolized the digital age, is found at the display shelf too.

♣  The Photo Salon where People can enjoy the photo culture

    Along with the camera exhibition, the “Fuji Photo Salon” is providing a specific space to make enjoying the photograph world. When I visited, a photo exhibition called “Colors of the Four Seasons in Japan” was opened there for attracting many casual visitors.
I believe this museum is really good place for exploring photographic world and for familiarizing people with the camera history.

(end)