> Manual Camera Series 7 "OLYMPUS no-subete" (All about OLYMPUS)
I almost finished reading the book. It's a pity that I can't share
the interesting pictures with all of you, but I roughly translated
the "Interview with Maitani". Maybe you already know most of the
story or the info is already available at Maitani Fan's site, but
there may be young and new OM fans here too... Please note that this
is not a word-to-word translation and I'm a poor English writer.
It's rather LONG so I'll post in three parts.
**********************
OM System Inside Story (part 1 of 3)
"A camera is not designed or developed by only one person. It's
always a product of teamwork." These are words frequently heard
from especially Japanese camera manufacturer engineers. No matter
how unique the camera is, the name of its designer is usually
unknown.
The Diamond-point Pen
Yoshihisa Maitani, advisor of Olympus today, is a designer himself
symbolizing the Olympus cameras. He designed the first half-format
"Pen" when he was only 24 years old. Since then he took charge of
Olympus camera projects such as the half-format SLR Pen series, the
XA series (whice became the origin of the capsule type P&S cameras
of today), and the SLR OM system.
There's a shining tool in Maitani's shirt pocket. At a glance it
looks like a common ball-point pen, but it has a precisely cut
diamond point at the tip. This is what called a diamond pen,
usually used at factories for scribing control numbers and markings
on press moulds. A special tool not commonly available at
stationery stores in the town.
Maitani needs this pen when an eager Olympus user asks a favor of
him. Maybe Maitani is the only camera designer in Japan, or in the
world, who is asked while walking down the street "May I have your
autograph on my camera?" First he was using an almost hand-made
diamond pen, but when the OM system has been introduced, too many
people began to ask him for his autograph, so the factory workers
presented this pen to him. Maitani has been using this pen for 30
years.
Demands for an SLR System Development
Olympus Pen series, marketed from 1959, became the best seller and
more than 17 million of them were sold in the succeeding 20 years.
In the 1960s, almost all camera manufacturers in Japan were selling
half format cameras and many of the new products were half format
too. Then, why Olympus decided to develop such a serious full
format SLR system "OM" in those days? Maitani says "Well, the
reason was rather simple ..."
Japan was in the middle of their highly growing economics period.
Cameras were one of the most expected products to earn foreign
money. However, sales of the Pen began to decrease in US, the
largest market. The main reason was the mount for half format
slides. New color slide film was starting to take over B&W film,
but half format slide mounts were not made in USA. In Europe and
Japan, slide films were returned from development properly mounted
in half format mounts, but not in USA. Two frames were mounted in a
full frame mount, or the whole roll was returned unmounted with 36
full format mounts.
Other manufacturers such as Nikon and Pentax started to market new
SLRs with specs overcoming their former rangefinder cameras.
Naturally, Olympus needed their own SLR to sell too.
(to be continued)
kazuya matsumoto
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