Shooting my Ultra-Rare Taroflex

MARICOPA, ARIZONA – I come from an era when taking photographs was an art form.

Photographers used to spend hours, if not days, setting up a single photograph. Once, I placed 28 slave strobes into a downtown building for the architect of the project just to capture the ultimate night shot. That night shoot took three days to set up and complete.

Today, everyone has a camera, either around their necks or in the palm of their hands. Everything is photographed, though not always well, with cell phones.

In the past, one had to first purchase a camera and lenses then evaluate their upcoming assignment to determine what film should be purchased at the local camera store. Filters, tripods, film holders, lighting and multiple cameras and lenses had to be determined before each shoot.

As a news reporter, I shot a lot of Tri-X and TMax 400 and 3200. It was a black and white world back then but occasionally a color assignment came around. I laugh at people with tripods and can still handhold a 600mm f:4 on the sidelines of a football game.

With a deep love of old cameras in my heart and 500 cameras on the shelf, I began a mission to take images with my rarest camera, A Taroflex 120 6x6 format twin lens reflex.

Never heard of a Taroflex? I am not surprised.

The Taroflex is a fluke in Japanese camera history.

As World War II neared, a few camera companies were on track to build some interesting and high-quality cameras. They had been copying German designs from Zeiss and Rolleiflex for years. The Taroflex was born from this innovative, but short lived, time between the wars.

The Taro was produced by Nippon Kōsokki Seisakusho in Tokio between 1941 and 1943. Photographic historians are not sure on its manufacturing dates. The company later developed into the much more known firm of Taron.

The Taroflex was advertised in Japanese publications from March 1943 to February 1944. The May 1943 advertisement in Hōdō Shashin, placed by the distributors Nihon Shōkai and Honjō Shōkai, gives the officially set price of ¥378, which was equivalent to the price of 2.5 ounces of gold at the time. Using a gold exchange calculation, that price would equate to a camera that costs $4,325 today.

The camera was never know to be marketed outside Japan.

The shutter on the Taroflex is a NKS-Tokio (1–200, Bulb and self-timer). Nippon Kōsokki Seisakusho was famous for making their NKS shutter as it was the foundation of the company at the beginning of the war. The Taro was their first, and unfortunately last, attempt to make a medium format TLR.

Another advertisement for the Taro in February 1944 gives the same ¥378 price and shows the same picture as in the first ad.

The ad boasts a large magnifying lens in the finder, which can be opened by one hand, and mentions the lenses as either K.O.L. Taro Anastigmat f/3.5 or TOA Anastigmat f/3.5.

My camera has the four-element TOA Anastigmat f/3.5 lens which were made by Riken, later known as Ricoh.

The Taroflex also appears in the April 1943 government inquiry on Japanese camera production but the maker's name is missing from the document.

After the war, a June 1947 article in a short-lived monthly Japanese photographic magazine named Kohga Gekkan stated that the Taroflex was one of the better Japanese TLR cameras, and that its production would “surely restart before the end of the year.” That statement was untrue and the Taroflex was never seen again on the production line.

A June 1949 article, written by Kitano Kunio in Kohga Gekkan, declared the Taroflex and Minoltaflex as the best two Japanese TLR cameras made during the war. Only a few dozen examples of the Taroflex made it to the market according to the article.

During an exhausting search of the planet over the past eight years, I have been able to determine that three Taroflex cameras have survived the decades and are in private collections. I have leads that six more may also be sitting in collections around the planet.

One Taroflex camera is owned by camera dealer in Japan and the other “certified” Taroflex was sold at auction in Köln, Germany in September 2008. The remaining six Taros I’ve found in Internet posts on chat boards, but I was never able to confirm these sightings.

Still to think that a few dozen ever got onto the market during one of the most brutal wars ever fought on our planet, makes the Taroflex one of the rarest photographic machines on the planet. I’m sure many of them were used by journalists and soldiers to photograph the war and destroyed in bombings and battle.

Getting my Taroflex ready

I am one lucky duck as my Taro is very nice, clean and in complete working order. I found it at an antique mall in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2012. It was $200 and marked “rare” – the seller had no idea how rare, I’m sure.

I once advertised it for sale, but those days are gone and it will remain in my collection.

I have tested the camera and shutter speeds seems pretty accurate. All operations of this machine are smooth - shutter, focus, finder and aperture. I find it odd that though being made during a war against the United States and Great Britain the makers of the Taroflex used only English engravings on the camera. You would expect only Japanese writing on the camera, but everything, including the rear exposure plate, is in English. During my studies of wartime cameras, I found it was customary for German and Japanese camera manufacturers to use English print on their cameras. Why? I don’t know.

The rear exposure plate on the Taro is almost an exact copy of the one on the back of a Rolleiflex from the same era. The camera is not marked “Made in Japan” but rather “Made in Nippon” in English.

The pop-up focusing hood resembles a Zeiss Ikon TLR and the TOA taking and viewing lenses are made by Riken. The taking lens on my camera is a TOA Anastigmat 7.5 cm f:3.5 while the viewing lens is a slightly brighter TOA Anastigmat 7.5cm f:3.2.

Under a close final inspection, I discovered disaster. The taking lens was very dirty inside so servicing was in order before this rare beauty could go back out into the field.

Nervously, I opened the camera on my workbench and removed the rear set of lens elements and that’s all it was. Just a light cleaning of the inside surfaces of the front and rear lens groups and this old Riken lens was ready to go.

During my servicing of the lens, I suddenly noticed a tiny little strange screw that had apparently fallen off the camera. I studied the camera for about a half-hour and finally determined the little screw belonged on the front of the body and it was the rear door latching contact. A tiny spot of epoxy and 24 hours of dry time and the camera was ready.

Sudden find in a camera store

I still live in a world where there is an old-time camera store. It is 80 miles away. My work Canon digital body blew its shutter and I had to take it to the repairman in Tucson. While in the same city, I of course had to go visit Tucson’s classic camera store, Monument Camera. That store has been open for a long time but has a new owner. I was friends with the previous owner Rick and pleased to meet the new proprietor Lee Walker. I thanked Lee for keeping Monument Camera alive.

As I scoured the shelves, I found an amazing generic mirrored lens cap for a twin lens reflex. It was $5 and I bought it straight away, along with a Leica factory 39mm to M mount adapter sitting next to it and a Kodak Medalist that needed repair.

I only hoped the lens cap would fit the Taro and it did!

What a great find and it looks right at home on my wartime relic.

Where will I test the Taro?

I live in the middle of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, so it is not ridiculously difficult to figure out what I’m going to photograph – the desert. The question is where.

Saguaro Cactus are everywhere around here and there are several locations I love to visit. One is near Florence, Arizona and another is down by Tucson. Because I recently had a major surgery and am not up to traveling and hiking far yet, I think the site near Florence will do nicely for this assignment and it’s about 30 miles away.

I went to Tempe Camera in Phoenix (actually Tempe of course) and purchased two rolls of Kodak Ektar 100 and two rolls of Kodak Portra 160. Holy smokes, I haven’t purchased 120 film in a number of years and the four rolls cost me more than $40. The mission is worth it.

Looking at the weather forecast, which really isn’t necessary in Arizona this time of year, Saturday and Sunday look like great days for our outing as it will only be 105 degrees. Anything below 110 this time of year is considered a cooling trend. Look for my next blog to check out how the assignment went and hopefully see some images taken by the Taroflex!

Part II: Rare Camera photographs Superstition Mountains

APACHE JUNCTION, AZ – As forest and wildfires ravaged the area, my plans to take the Taroflex camera out for a photo shoot had to be revised and delayed.

Instead of just going to the desert near Florence, Arizona to test out the Taroflex, my girlfriend, Catherine, and I traveled to Lost Dutchman State Park in the Superstition Mountains near Apache Junction.

It seemed like the location that was in the middle of the smoke clouds that day.

With fewer than 10 of these cameras known in the world, I honestly was a little fearful that the camera is too rare, too old and too fragile to use. Those fears were correct as disaster struck and the camera broke on its first field test.

We got to the head of the Trail Loop Trail in the Superstition Mountains and sat down at an outdoor picnic bench to load film into the Taro.

It was already about 100 degrees that morning and I didn’t have much stamina due to a recent surgery.

As I moved the take up spool from its feeding to winding locations, the take up spool pin fell apart in my hand. The pin shot across the interior of the camera but luckily no pieces fell out. I sat there stunned as I had the cap of the pin assembly in my left hand and the pin and spring bounced around the interior of the camera.

I stopped breathing for at least a minute, it seemed.

After several intense minutes of struggling, I figured out that I could still load a roll into the camera and take my first test roll, but there was no way to unload and reload another roll of film.

I didn’t have any tools or a dark bag with me. It wasn’t an ideal test, but the show must go on.

With only one 12 exposure roll of Kodak Portra 160 to take pictures on, I was relieved to at least shoot a roll after traveling 60 miles into the mountains. I thought I had 12 frames to shoot.

As I advanced the roll film, something wasn’t right. The arrows and the numbers in the ruby window just didn’t seem like they were appearing in their correct spacing. I was correct. For some reason, the film number window on the bottom of the Taro was not installed in its correct position.

This meant that I was advancing the film as I would have on a 6x9 camera, and not the 6x6 format of the Taroflex.

I only got seven exposures on the roll, instead of the 12 I had envisioned. At least the images were not overlapping, and I was doing nothing more than wasting film.

After returning home, I figured out the Taro has an automated film advance system but it's not working on my camera at this time.

The Taro performed flawlessly in the field after suffering the first breakdown, though I was nervous and rusty as a film photographer.

The shutter fired as expected but I did have a bit of a problem focusing. I tried to make up for my poor eyesight by using a smaller aperture to increase the depth of field, taking images at 1/200 f:8 and 1/50 f:8.

After getting back to the house and not feeling very well due to surgery and the heat, I left the Taroflex in its bag for a couple days before attempting to remove the roll of film. I was simply frustrated with my Taroflex.

Retrieving the film from the camera

After a half-hour of study a few days later, I reasoned that three screws had to be removed to get the 120 film out of the Taroflex.

That part was easy, and the film was taken 20 miles to lab a few days later.

The failure of the take-up spool pin was simply its poor design. The connection between the pin and its cap was just pressed together. After some incredibly careful epoxy work, I pressed the assembly back together and let it dry for 24 hours.

It totally did the trick and the camera was back in perfect working order with no signs of the repair.

Film processing

It is difficult to find a company that still processes and prints 120 film these days but fortunately, I live in the Phoenix area and Tempe Camera Photo Imaging is close by.

Tempe Camera is the best in the region for both equipment and film processing.

Catherine dropped the film off for me and it was ready about a week later. The lab even called me after film development to let me know that we had images. Oh, I was thrilled after the ordeal I went through in the field with the camera breaking.

Image taken by the Taroflex

I asked the lab to return the original spool that the film was on as it came with the Taro when I bought it. They were very nice and sent it back to me along with the paper backing so I can see what I can do about the ruby window problem.

Sadly, there was a light leak that damaged some of the images. I think the broken take-up pin was likely the culprit. Three of the seven images were fine and didn’t suffer from the light leak.

Image taken by the Taroflex

I was surprised by the accurate colors produced by the uncoated TOA Anastigmat 7.5 cm f:3.5 taking lens that was made during World War II by Riken, later known as Ricoh.

During that era taking color images was rare as most everyone used black and white films. Three of the four good images seemed a little underexposed while the fourth image was sharp and filled with nice contrast.

I think our mission was a success and the Taroflex still works.

Image taken by the Taroflex

Evaluation

Reaching the end of my mission to use the rarest camera in my collection, if not the world, is a little bitter-sweet. I wanted to test this camera out from the day I found it so many years ago.

Now that mission is complete.

The Taroflex was tedious, nerve-racking and yet still joyful. I was upset when the camera fell apart on me on its trial run, as I feared that I had just destroyed a magical treasure.

Thankfully, this photographic unicorn is fine, and I suspect the Taroflex and I will be on a second outing very soon.

Part of the problem I had shooting it was the fact that I haven’t shot film, let alone medium or large format, in so long that I am rusty as a film photographer.

Back in the old days, I didn’t think about how to load a roll of film, how shutter speeds and apertures work or how to focus accurately. I shot dozens of rolls of film every week back then.

Those things were just natural but the change to digital has made much of my photographic knowledge dispensable.

With my aging eyesight, I will be putting a grain focusing loupe into my camera bag.

To think that I was using one of just a handful of Taroflex cameras on the planet was exhilarating and something I will remember for a long time.

Now it is time to load the Taroflex again and this time let’s head for the White Mountains.

NOTE: Photos taken of me using the Taroflex were captured by my partner Catherine Hudson.

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