Capturing Film Tech History: Rondo Colormatic

Sticking with eye catching cameras, this post will be looking at a rather unusual, but still cool, colour correcting camera, the Rondo Colormatic.

As with most posts we will start with the company, which funny enough is similar to the Eugen Ising Pucky I Flex Camera, in that there is almost no information on the company that made the Colormatic. It seems that according to the manual, the Ronod Colormatic was made by the Ronod Company Ltd., but further research shows that this could be a subsidiary or at least the new name of the company, because the real company the owned the Rondo brand was “Yamashita Shoten, Tokypo, active already in 1921; dealer and distributer of cameras; also owned brand name 'Rondo' under which it sold a variety of photographic products; also owned the 'Sun' brand name; became Chiyoda Shokai in 1946, based in Ginza, operating until 1950s; confusingly, KK Yamashita Yujiro Shoten began operating from 1950, quickly becoming Chuo-Shashin-yohin KK (Central Photo Supply Co) and used the brand name 'Rondo' from 1951-1959…” (Science Museum Group).

Just like the Eugen Ising Pucky I Flex Camera the company name, KK Yamashita Yujiro Shoten, suggest that the founder was Yamashita Yujiro. According to Camera-Wiki, the company was first a camera dealership, mostly selling cameras from Shinko, the most popular camera being the Shinkoflex.

Shinkoflex. Image Source: https://img.aucfree.com/350340287.1.jpg

The company name is also confusing as stated above, from the excerpt from the Science Museum Group. But it seems that (according to Camera-Wiki, so take it with a grain of salt), that the company might have first gone by the name Yamashita Shōten or Yamashita Yūjirō Shōten, while being a dealership and was established by Yamashita Yūjirō and Hashimoto Tadamasa. This was before/during WWII and when they started selling their own cameras under the brand names Sun, such as the Sun Stereo Camera (1935) and Rondex, a range of folding cameras, such as the Tsubasa Super Semi (1940).

Sun Stereo Camera. Image Source: https://www.kesef.de/Auktion/bild1266c.jpg

Tsubasa Super Semi. Image Source: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Tsubasa_Super_Semi

But then after the war, they most likely changed the name to KK Yamashita Yujiro Shoten, then Chuo-Shashin-yohin KK or Central Photo Supply Co and possibly Ronod Company Ltd., which still acted as a dealership and distributor for other camera companies.

The reason why I believe they went with the name Ronod Company Ltd., is that according to Camera-Wiki, “The most recent mention of the company found so far is dated February 1959…” but the Rondo brand still appeared on cameras between 1960-62, according to CollectiBlend (2024). This could have been when the company was feel the strain of the post-war economy and was on its last legs. But this is all speculation on my part, due to the fact that they “lasted long enough to export a basic camera model and multiple slide projector models to the United States market, both organizations were very short-lived…” (Rinker 2024).

These projectors also had the company name listed as Ronod Company Ltd., as seen on the 8mm Movie Editor/Projector’s box and user manual. But seeing that information on this company is so rare, it is safe to say that it no longer exists, or operates on a much smaller scale.

Now time to look at the object of this post, the Rondo Colormatic. This camera was released in 1961 (CollectiBlend 2024), although Ravasio (2021) states that it went even further back to the late 1950s.

Just like the company that made it, I can’t really find any information on the Colormatic, so I will just jump in to talk about the camera itself. Starting with the front.

First the lens.

Which is a Fixed Rondonar-W F-35mm Color-Corrected lens. Let’s break that down. Rondonar, likely refers to that this lens, like the Nikkor lens from Nikon (see Coolpix L19 Compact camera and Nikon Coolpix S01 compact digital camera) is made by the Rondo company and the W is probably an indication that the lens is a wide-angle lens. This is confirmed by the manual that states: “Rondonar 35mm super wide-Angle Lens, color-corrected with excellent resolving power, giving amazingly sharp and clear images.”

But let’s go a bit further, which is the “plastic bubbles” surrounding the lens, known as selenium photo(-electric) cell (Ravasio 2021), which controls the aperture.

To simplify what a Selenium photo cell is here is an excerpt from Megatron (2010): “Selenium photo-electric cells convert the energy from the light falling on them directly into electrical energy. The advantage of selenium photo-voltaic cells over other cells is that their response is very close to that of the human eye; this makes them particularly suitable for use in light measuring instruments. Their efficiency as energy converters of the total spectrum is not as high as some other photocells, and so they are not used as solar cells.”

As well as an excerpt from the Oxford Reference (2024):

“Either of two types of photoelectric cell; one type relies on the photoconductive effect, the other on the photovoltaic effect (see photoelectric effect). In the photoconductive selenium cell an external e.m.f. must be applied; as the selenium changes its resistance on exposure to light, the current produced is a measure of the light energy falling on the selenium. In the photovoltaic selenium cell, the e.m.f. is generated within the cell. In this type of cell, a thin film of vitreous or metallic selenium is applied to a metal surface, a transparent film of another metal, usually gold or platinum, being placed over the selenium. Both types of cell are used as light meters in photography.”

A selenium photo-electric cell is mostly used on lightmeters, such as the Minox 8x11 Lightmeter and the ROWI Selenium Lightmeter. But here it is on the lens directly to control the aperture to automatically get the best picture in different lighting conditions, thus correcting the colour.

Minox 8x11 Lightmeter. Image Source: https://butkus.org/chinon/flashes_meters/minox_light_meter/minox_2.jpg

ROWI Selenium Lightmeter. Image Source: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/EfoAAOSwrG5hCnBv/s-l400.jpg

But the Colormatic isn’t the only Rondo camera to have this accessory. Other Rondo cameras include the Rondomatic and the Rondo Harmony.

Rondomatic. Image Source: https://corsopolaris.net/supercameras/35mmwide/Rondomatic_1.jpg

Rondo Harmony. Image Source: https://collectiblend.com/Cameras/images/Rondo-Camera-Harmony.jpg

In fact, Rondo isn’t even the only camera company to include a selenium photo-electric cell in the camera’s design. There are many, such as the Olympus Pen EE, Olympus Trip 35, the Dust Automatica, Kowa H, Agfa Optima, Kodak Retinette IIA and Olympus Auto-Eye.

Collection of selenium photo-electric cell cameras.
Image Source: https://www.35mmc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/alwaysthesun-1.jpg

Rondo wasn’t even the first, for the first camera to have a selenium photo cell was the Contax III, in 1936 (Pattison 2020).

Contax III. Image Source: https://foticoscollection.com/storage/media/24050/conversions/iMenU_orig-zoom.jpg

The Rondo Colormatic’s selenium photo cell, “which forms the lens facia…” (Camera-Wiki) is connected to a trapped-needle, which is an “exposure system is used in several popular cameras (examples include the Olympus Trip 35, the Paxina Electromatic, and one model of the Mansfield Skylark). It is one mechanism by which auto-exposure can be achieved using a selenium meter. The voltage of the selenium cell deflects the needle of a galvanometer. The lens aperture, often formed by just two shaped blades, is spring-loaded so that when the shutter-release is pressed, it begins to close (or in some versions of the mechanism, begins to open). The needle of the galvanometer obstructs this motion (this may be achieved, for example, by one blade of the aperture having a stepped metal plate attached to it, which projects up toward the meter needle), so that the light value determines the aperture...” (Camera-Wiki)

But this seems to only be when the Colormatic is set to automatic. For on top of the lens barrel is two sides, indicated by an M (manual) and A (automatic).

The M side allows the user to set the f/stop and therefore the aperture. It can be set to an f/stop of 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16 and 22.

The A side is used to set the lens to the ASA (ISO) or DIN to the film’s ISO indication. This then most likely sets the trapped-needle and selenium photo-electric cell mechanism in play.

To get a better understanding, here is a screenshot from the manual:

Page 10 & 11 from the manual.

There are no focus settings, meaning that the Colormatic has a fixed focus of 35mm (Ravasio 2021).

On the side of the lens is the shutter release/lever.

The shutter seems to be a leaf shutter and has a speed of 1/50 second with a one stroke releasing system, according to the manual. The shutter also, like the Eugen Ising Pucky I Flex Camera, locks the shutter to prevent double exposure, only unlocking once the film has been advanced to the next frame.

Above the lens on the right is the viewfinder, which has a yellow border that helps indicate if there is sufficient light. But it is also not above the lens, which can cause problems (see KODAK Pocket Instamatic 10 Camera).

On the side of the camera is the flash sync socket (Ravasio 2021), where a flash is attached to sync the bulb with the shutter through a PC flash connector (see Eugen Ising Pucky I Flex Camera).

Page 16 from the manual.

On top of the camera…

Is the film advance lever and the film counter, that must be pushed down when rewinding the film.

A cold shoe plate.

The film rewinding handle, to well… rewind the film.

Back of the camera is the viewfinder and the insufficient light indicator, that shows a red line to warn the user that the light exposure is too low and once that is corrected, the red line disappears indicating that the exposure is ok and the shot can be taken.

Page 6 from the manual.

Now underneath the camera…

Is the tripod/wrist strap socket.

Page 16 of the manual.

Next to that is the back cover opener, which like the Agfa Clack Film camera, opens the film compartment, by splitting the camera in two, when it is twisted towards the O (for open, shocker!) and then closed when the two pieces are put back together and the opener is twisted toward the C (for closed, who would have guessed?).

To learn more about this camera, check out the manual:

https://www.cameramanuals.org/pdf_files/rondo_rondomatic_35.pdf

The camera takes 35mm film. To learn about this film please see my Kodak 200 Color Plus Film post.

Other things to note is that the Colormatic “has a metal body and a plastic barrel…” and has a frame size of 24x36 (Ravasio 2021).

This camera is both the simplest and complicated camera that anyone can use. Just like the Pucky I, the Colormatic seems to be well known, but yet no one knows anything about it! But other than that, it is an interesting looking camera that catches many people off guard with its lens.

Thanks for making it to the end and as always, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did researching it.

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List of sources:

Camera-Wiki. Rondo Colormatic. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Rondo_Colormatic

Camera-Wiki. Trapped Needle. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Trapped_needle#:~:text=A%20trapped%2Dneedle%20exposure%20system,light%20value%20determines%20the%20aperture.

Camera-Wiki. Yamashita. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Yamashita#:~:text=(Image%20rights)-,Postwar%20period,an%20advertisement%20in%20Ars%20Camera.

CollectiBlend. 2024.Yamashita. https://collectiblend.com/Cameras/Rondo-Camera/

Megatron. 2010. Selenium Photo-Electric Cells. https://otc.co.uk/megatron/selenium/index.html#:~:text=Selenium%20photo%2Delectric%20cells%20convert,use%20in%20light%20measuring%20instruments.

Oxford Reference. Selenium Cell. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100453399#:~:text=In%20this%20type%20of%20cell,as%20light%20meters%20in%20photography.

Pattison, C. 2020. Always the Sun – In Admiration of the Selenium Cell Compact Camera – By Chris Pattison. https://www.35mmc.com/17/08/2020/always-the-sun-in-admiration-of-the-selenium-cell-compact-camera-by-chris-pattison/

Ravasio, L. 2021. Rondo Colormatic. https://www.fuorifuoco.it/rondo-colormatic/

Rinker, H. 2024. Rondo [Film Projectors]. https://www.worthpoint.com/dictionary/p/tools/manufacturer-film/rondo-film-projectors