: Generally speaking most photographic historians seem to give credit for these
most important
: photographic milestones:
:
: Konica - Inventor of the 35mm SLR
: Olympus - Inventor of OTF TTL Flash Control
: Minolta - Inventor of the Auto Focusing Lens
:
: Rather or not these are still covered under patents is really insignificant
for
historical
: purposes. What is significant is that none of these companies are now
seriously
involved in
: the state of the art development of 35mm SLR film cameras.
Can you make an exception for Minolta? The Dynax 9 with a shutter speed of
1/12.000 sec, sync time of 1/300 sec, motor drive of 5.5 fps and a price level
that approaches that of the Canon EOS 1N hardly can be called a camera for
whimps.
As far as Olympus is concerned, the've not completely abandoned 35mm SLR
cameras.
It's just the OM line that doesn't seem to be developed further. The iS series
is
still alive and kicking. Parts of these cameras are state of the art to me
(design, grip, lens quality and IVP flash). Konica switched to the rangefinder
market to impress (Hexar, Hexar RF).
: Olympus is not now interested in this pro 35mm market. So I
: don't think that they are that interested in making this transition of the OM
system into a
: digital system. We would all like to see them do this, but I would be
seriously
surprised
: if they made this transition on the OM system. Regardless this is an
interesting
time to be
: involved in imaging. The changes have never moved so rapidly.
Olympus has been very active in developing digital cameras (Camedia) based on
the
iS (ZLR) concept. Now that Nikon has released its digital SLR D1 camera Olympus
could fix its historical mistake. They own the OM MF mount, OM AF mount, a
complete array of MF OM lenses and a limited array of AF OM lenses, so all the
technology is there. I gave up hopes for a 35mm OM-5 AF, but not for a digital
OM.
H@nz
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