The Okaya Optical Works company, located in the mountain city of Nagano in Japan in the 1950s, made a number of interesting and well-built fixed lens rangefinder cameras with the brand name “Lord”. They also made their own lenses, branded Highkor. Okaya was short lived, lasting only a decade, but their cameras had a number of interesting innovations including the first camera (the Lord Martian) with a selenium light meter ringing the lens, which was then used by a number of Japanese camera makers.
Optically, what set them apart was the fact that their cameras were built with semi-wide lenses of a focal length of 40mm. Three lenses stand out for me, and there were the Highkor 40mm f1.8, f1.9 and f2. The first of these was the f1.9 on the Lord 5D, followed by the f1.8 on a later model, the SE (which also sometimes had the f1.9 fitted instead of the f1.8), with the f2 lens on the Lord SL.
All three of these lenses seem to be classic double gauss designs, with very strong “ni-sen” bokeh. I do not have the f2, which seems to be a bit tamer, but the f1.8 and f1.9 are not only sharp without major vignetting (with a 40mm lens!) but have a unique and, to me, very pleasing bokeh. It is reminiscent of the bokeh of the Leotax Leonon 50mm f2, but having a wider lens with the same look is a pleasant surprise. The f1.8 version seems slightly different from the f1.9 version, but I need to get both side by side to do a proper comparison.
