Olympus History

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• History of Cameras
• Olympus Stories
• Milestones
• Special Lecture
  • the Semi-Olympus I - the Pen Series
  • the Olympus OM-1 - the XA Series

• Olympus History Top

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Olympus has a tradition of lens technology dating back to its beginnings as a microscope manufacturer.

Thank you for coming here today. The JCII Camera Museum is currently staging an Olympus exhibition, and I thank everyone concerned and acknowledge the considerable effort that has gone into preparing for this exhibition. One of the things that I've noticed looking at the Museum's exhibits about different manufacturers is that each manufacturer has its own color. I'm sure that Olympus also has its color, too. Yet even though I was involved in designing Olympus cameras, no-one instructed or ordered me to use a particular color. The color just seemed to emerge from somewhere. Perhaps my color became the color of Olympus, but I believe that there is an Olympus color. My involvement in camera design lasted around 20 years, from the Olympus Pen in 1959 to the XA Series in 1979. The theme for this program is the history of Olympus, and today I'd like to speak about the period from the early beginnings of Olympus cameras until the development of the Pen F as the last product in the Pen Series. In the next session I'll cover the period between the OM Series and the XA Series. Takachiho Seisakusho Olympus began to manufacture microscopes in the 1920s under the name Takachiho Seisakusho. I wasn't around in the 1920s, but I've heard that the founder of Olympus had made a fortune trading sugar and decided to use that money to start up a microscope manufacturing business in Japan. I'm told that he faced a difficult struggle, since at that time Japan had no tradition of microscope manufacturing and lacked the necessary technology. Apparently they began by creating products that looked like microscopes and learned the technology from scientists working at the University of Tokyo. The first Olympus microscope — The Asahi In 1920, Olympus launched its first microscopes, one of which was actually used by the Emperor. The company then began to consider expansion and diversification. Because of its beginnings as a microscope manufacturer, Olympus had become specialized in the production of lenses and was looking for another lens-based product. What they chose was cameras. As with microscopes, they started to develop a camera by first designing the lens. I have the greatest admiration for these pioneers, for the lens is the soul of the camera.

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