Founded in 1951 by Toshio Norita (車田利夫), it originally made lenses for binoculars but moved on to prisms and thence pentaprisms for SLR cameras.

[1] When Musashino decided to terminate production of this camera, Norita decided to expand from being merely an optical designer/manufacturer to manufacturing cameras, and took over machine tools, assembly, and some staff from Musashino.

Originally branded Rittron, this lens had been designed and manufactured by Norita from the start.

[3] Norita also exported cameras to France, West Germany, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia.

In 1994 Hagiya Takeshi wrote that the Norita products his readers were most likely to encounter were the three (RGB) lenses for large television projectors.