L
ike many camera
companies, Olympus
started out in optics- specifically making
microscopes, which
is a heritage shared
with the two other
century-makers of recent years,
Leica and Nikon – and today
medical imaging equipment is
the biggest component of the
company’s operations. But it’s
the cameras that interest us here,
and Olympus’s challenging of
both engineering and technologies
in its quest to make them smaller
and lighter without compromising
performance.
For the record, what would
eventually become Olympus was
founded in Tokyo on 12 October
1919, and marketed its first
microscope (also Japan’s first)
in 1920. The camera side of the
business started conventionally
enough with Olympus being one
of the many companies to take
advantage of Japan’s increasing
prosperity in the mid-1930s
which had sparked a growing
interest in photography. In 1936
the Takachicho Manufacturing
Company produced its first camera
lens, a 75mm f4.5 which carried
the Zuiko name and incorporated
an Auto-Compur leaf shutter.
It was installed in a 6x4.5cm
format folding rollfilm camera – a
configuration that quickly became
hugely popular – which was called
the Olympus, or Semi Olympus,
with “semi’ being a reference to
the negative size. There was a
succession of ‘folders’ – including
6x6cm and dual 6x4.5/6x6 cm
models – through to the late
1950s, but after WWII it was the
twin lens reflex (TLR) that began
rapidly gaining in popularity,
spearheaded by the Rolleiflex
and Rolleicord models. Olympus
responded with the Olympus
Flex B1, which was introduced
in 1952 and had a faster, f2.8-
speed 75mm lens. In fact, it was
the first Japanese TLR with f2.8
viewfinding and taking lenses,
plus Olympus emphasised the
performance of its six-element
F-Zuiko lens over the four-element
designs in the German cameras.Thinking Smaller
Pursuing superior optical
performance was an Olympus
obsession right from the start,
and by the late-1950s there was
another imperative driving its
camera designs... miniaturisation.
The driving force behind this
was a young engineer called
Yoshihisa Maitani who joined
the company in 1956 straight
from university. Maitani’s chosen
field was actually automotive
engineering, but he was a
passionate amateur photographer
who had already patented his own
camera design while still at high
school. He wanted to create smaller
cameras, but less expensive
ones as well, both to be achieved
without unduly compromising
picture quality or performance.or 72 froma 36-exposurelength- enablingmoreeconomical
shooting.Ofcourse,it alsohelped
Maitanidesignsmallercameras
thatwerejustascapableasbigger
ones.Olympusintroduceditsfirst
Pen-serieshalf-framecamerain
1959,andthismodelwasa fixed-
lenscompactsimplycalledthe
“Pen”.Thenamewasselectedto
conveytheideathatthecamera
wasaseasytocarryaroundand
useasa writingimplement.The
earlyPenmodelswerea great
success,convincingMaitani
thattheformathadpotentialin
theenthusiastsector,soheset
aboutdesigninganinnovative
half-framesinglelensreflexwith
“Pursuing
superior optical
performance
was anOlympus
obsession right
from the start
and, bythe late-
1950s, there was
another imperative
driving its
camera designs...
miniaturisation.”
The 35mm film format was
already enabling significant
reductions in camera size, and
Olympus produced a variety of
fixed-lens rangefinder models
during the 1950s, along with
the Ace (1958) which was an
interchangeable lens RF camera. It
was designed to be more compact
than Leica’s M3, and the Ace E
version, launched a year later, had
built-in (but uncoupled) match-
needle metering using a selenium
cell. The choice of lenses were an
E-Zuiko 45mm f2.8, an E-Zuiko W
35mm f2.8 and an E-Zuiko T 80mm
f5.6 with an exclusive bayonet
mount which fitted to the camera’s
leaf shutter housing. The fixed-lens
Olympus Auto from the same
period also had built-in metering
(coupled this time too), and the
Auto Eye model from 1960 went
even further and offered shutter-
priority auto exposure control.
Designing ever more reliable
exposure control would become
another Olympus obsession over
the following decades.
However, despite their advanced
designs (and possibly because of
them), none of Olympus’s 35mm
RF cameras were especially big
sellers, and Yoshihisa Maitani –
presented with a clean slate by the
design department – began to think
outside the (full) frame. He turned
to the half-frame 35mm format
which gave an image area of
18x24 mm, but more importantly
doubled the number of shots –
48 from a 24-exposure film rollOLYMPUS PEN F
1963
The economics – and size
advantages – of the half-frame
35mm format were the catalysts
behind Olympus’s hugely
successful Pen series of cameras.
The SLR designs were hugely
innovative too, with the reflex
mirror turned sideways to allow
for a very streamlined body.OLYMPUS PEN FT
1966
The FT model had a built-in
TTL exposure meter, albeit
uncoupled. A rotary-type
focal-plane shutter allowed for
flash sync at all speeds.OLYMPUSM-1
1972
ChristenedtheM-1when
it was unveiledatthe
1972 Photokinaexhibition,
Olympus’sall-new35mm
SLR – anditsOMmountlens
system– changedeverything
both forthecompanyandfor
35mm photography.OLYMPUS 1OO YEARS