My favorite year, was 1972, and little did I know then,
that this was the year the OM series camera was
introduced. It was also the same year, my favorite
football team went undefeated and won the Super Bowl.
Talk about a long time ago? Well think of Richard M.
Nixon and Water Gate.
The demise of the OM camera probably started when
Olympus made the decision that ?professional
photographers?, didn?t need to have auto-exposure or
auto-aperture cameras. They felt there was no real
market in this area. They put most of there efforts into
the compact camera market. Most people wanted a small
simple to use camera that didn?t require much if any
effort at all and Olympus sold millions of them.
This really put Olympus behind the eight ball, as far as
the pro-market goes, when Canon Corporation came out
with the AE-1 in 1976. A camera that Joe Theisman (I
believe) made famous a little on further down the line.
The AE-1 had the first microprocessor built inside of
it. (CPU) The "AE-1" was the first 35mm AE SLR camera
that had shutter speed-priority, and TTL metering.
Then Olympus came out with the OM-10 cameras in 1978,
which had there share of quality control issue problems
and the OM-77 and 88?s (in 1986), which had there
quality control problems as well. I believe Minolta was
the first Camera Company to produce a 35mm auto-focus
camera, Nikon had the F-501 auto-focus shortly
thereafter, and they were pretty popular as well.
When Canon finally introduced the Canon EOS system in
1987, it was first auto-focus camera ?truly? built for
the ?professional photographer? in mind, which by the
way, had a top shutter speed of 1/8000 sec. It was
somewhere at this point, in my opinion, when Olympus
started to get really far behind the major 3 companies,
as far as the professional market goes.
The EOS- 1 camera definitely changed the way
professional photographers saw auto-focus cameras and
thus it became very popular. And later, tennis star
spokesperson Andre Agassi, helped to give it further
name brand recognition. The "EOS" system, was developed
under three major guidelines:
1) - no price increase due to the introduction of the AF
mechanism
2) - a lightweight design which enables shooting indoor
sports hand-holding the camera with a "300mm f/2.8" lens
3) - Auto-focus sensitivity equivalent to exposure
sensitivity.
Though Olympus made an effort to introduce the ?all in
one? camera, as in the IS auto-focus camera series line,
it was never really considered a professional camera.
This is why I feel Olympus is devoting so much time into
the digital camera market? They don?t want to be left
behind, again??
Sam?..
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