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Aires, in Japanese アイレス Airesu (like "eye-rescue" minus the "cue"), was a Japanese manufacturer of a number of 35mm and roll film cameras in the 1950's.

Beginning as Yallu Optical Co., Ltd. (ヤルー光学, Yarū Kōgaku), the company started in 1949 to produce the Yallu Flex, a 35mm TLR influenced by the Zeiss Contaflex. The Yallu Flex was ingeniously and elegantly designed and was well equipped and appealingly advertised, but in the end it was never offered for sale. About fifty were produced.

The company was renamed Aires Camera Works, or K.K. Aires Shashinki Seisakusho (㈱アイレス写真機製作所), in August 1950[1]. The company was based in Tokyo[2]. After a decade of making TLRs and rangefinders, Aires went bankrupt due to its unsuccessful foray into leaf-shutter SLRs and closed in July 1960[3].

35mm TLR Edit

35mm Rangefinders Edit

35mm Leaf-shutter fixed-lens single lens reflex cameras Edit

120 6×6 TLR Edit

120 6×6 folding Edit

Notes Edit

  1. JCII/Lewis, ed "The History of the Japanese Camera" p71.
  2. Its address from 1951 to early 1956 was Tōkyō-to Toshima-ku Takada-minami-machi 3–797 (東京都豊島区高田南町3–797), from late 1956 to 1959 it was Tōkyō-to Shinjuku-ku Nishi-Ōkubo 1–437 (東京都新宿区西大久保1–437). Source: advertisements reproduced in Kokusan kamera no rekishi, pp. 113–4 and 216–8.
  3. JCII/Lewis, ed "The History of the Japanese Camera", p107.

Bibliography Edit

Links Edit

In English and Italian:

In Japanese:

In French / English :

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